


Moonlit Cafe

by linkzeldi



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Cannibalism, F/M, Gen, Gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-01
Updated: 2018-04-02
Packaged: 2019-01-07 21:06:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 20
Words: 152,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12240597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/linkzeldi/pseuds/linkzeldi
Summary: In an alternate universe where Kaneki decides to completely assume the identity of the one eyed king, and make every serious decision he can to fight for the sake of ghouls, as he grows more and more into the role, he grows farther and farther apart from those he left behind at the Cafe.This is including Furuta Nimura, whose plans he interrupted, yet who he spared on a whim. He keeps him alive in the basement to learn more about V, and the greater picture. However, the further Kaneki grows away from his friends, the larger in presence his shadow, Furuta Nimura, seems to grow.





	1. Prologue: In the Case of Nameless King

Whether you sit on the throne, or destroy it, it’s all up to you now.

When Takatsuki said those words to him, Kaneki Ken knew for the first time in his life he had a choice. Perhaps it was because the wounds from watching his choice to kill Arima, taken away from her were still fresh, the images still flashing by in the back of his vision.

He relished the freedom he felt in that moment. A single, dazzling, brilliant moment of clarity. As all things beautiful though, Kaneki Ken immediately knew it was fading. Fading as fast as Takatsuki in front of him, who could barely keep her eyes open.

He barely had time to contemplate it, and when he did he contemplated it as thus. He could destroy the throne, slowly destroy the roles that others laid out for him and finally have a reason to live as Kaneki Ken, or he could throw that away and become the nameless king which best served ghoul kind.

  
It could have gone either way. Kaneki felt it too, the desire to simply sway between the two. As if he were standing in a boat, halfway to shore and halfway to tide, letting the waves rock him back and forth without ever deciding one way or the other. That way he could continue to stay at the center of things forever.

In fact, it was likely ninety nine times out of one hundred that Kaneki would simply continue to stand there, and not decide. Let’s say though, for the sake of argument, this one path, this unique reality differed in one way-

  
Kaneki Ken decided.

“I will become the nameless king, so… farewell Takatsuki, farewell to kindness, humanity and gratitude. I have substituted myself for Providence in rewarding the good; may you now wield me, Yoshimura Eto.”

  
He knelt before Eto; pulling off the last remaining fabric on his shoulder that had already been torn by Arima’s fragmented quinque in his last blow, and offered it to her as if he was waiting to be crowned.

  
It was a small decision, one minor change. Yet, events after that, much like a butterfly flying a few inches away from where it was meant to be flying, could change the route of a hurricane, events began to cascade.

Kaneki Ken did something he had never done before when he announced himself as nameless king, he took human blood. Later that morning, Shinsanpei Aura would have a real reason to hate him when he discovered the news. He took the title, and with the remnants of Aogiri began organizing his forces.

He only took one brief break from his work. To take a stroll and meet with Furuta Nimura, his former partner. The conversation went mostly the same, except with one difference. In these sequence of events though, the endings made all the difference.

“They’ll make their debut one day; do me a favor and play with them then. Ufufu.”

“King. Are you sure you don’t want to go after him?”

Hmmm, Kaneki thought in that moment. Perhaps he was right. Then a great kagune emerged from his back, large enough to drill into and shake the foundations of the tunnel. Kaneki had learned something clever from Furuta, the best way to destroy a ghoul of Rize’s regeneration level was to crush them.

When he saw the still living Furuta, peeking his head out of the rubble he knew he was correct. Kaneki brought a razor sharp tendril of Rize’s kagune to his throat, but when he saw something strange, Furuta’s small and genuine smile something stopped in himself.

That expression quickly disappeared.

“Wah! Be careful with that! You could really cut a guy up.”

“I want to give you a nice cut, your hair’s gotten too long you think. You’ll look handsome.

  
“Oooh! I want that! But then I’d die.”

“Yep, you’d die.”

  
Kaneki sighed.

Amazing, he had just heard Furuta’s whole story and not batted an eye. It did not matter to him much, even if Furuta had been born some half thing with a half life, he purposefully went on to make Kaneki into a monster just like himself. There was no need to look past his own pain on this occasion and feel sympathy for the devil.  However, the peaceful and relaxed expression Furuta Nimura displayed moments away from his own death moved Kaneki’s own heart.

  
Kaneki looked up at the sky. The sun was low in the horizon and his shadow stretched out as long as it could possibly be. It had become night time already. He supposed there was no choice then, but to drag Furuta back with him to the moonlit cafe.


	2. In the Case of Ui Koori

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ui Kori finds a reason to fight in the place he least expected it.

Kaneki returned from the basement, replacing the gloves on his hand as he did. The old ones had become far too stained. Wearing them was only an old habit though, as the flesh underneath was fully intact, and soft like a newborn’s.

In the background he heard the television, but more notable was the sight of Take, Yomo, Yusa, Shio, Rikai all staring up at the same sight.

Black smoke is coming from the CCG building in the 22nd ward, we’re receiving reports that the 19th ward is in a similiar state. Is this also the doing of ghouls.

  
“So this is how, the ‘other side’ does things, huh…”

Kaneki supposed Touka was there as well.

“It’s not a problem. Our new friend Furuta left a parting gift for us when he left the CCG. Since he’s already set things into motion, we might as well take advantage of things.”

“You can’t possibly… that would be just like what Aogiri was doing.”

“You know Touka, your brother, Naki, Miza, a lot of ghouls in that prison they were members of aogiri right? Then they shouldn’t mind at all.”

Touka slammed her fist on the counter. It was normally something that would have gotten a stunned reaction out of Kaneki, but he was tired already from his long ‘conversations’ with Furuta. He merely gave her a sidelong glance.

“What?”

“The news said the attackers were wearing clown masks. You have to know this already, the clowns are a dangerous gang.”

Kaneki smiled at her. It might have been a fake smile, but he hoped she would appreciate at least the effort he put behind it.

“You worry too much, Touka! I was an investigator for a long time you know, I’m different from the newbie to the ghoul world waiter you once knew. Maybe it’s no longer from an insider’s perspective, but I know comprehensive information on most ghoul factions, and I know one thing in particular about the clowns.” At that moment he scratched the side of his cheek with one finger. “They love famous people! So, everybody present, let’s show them our fight and convince them our side is more enertaining!”

  
Touka had nothing to say in response. Except to think how after his long ‘conversations’ with Furuta, even though his hair had turned pure white just like the last time she had known him, Kaneki Ken was beginning to change into something she did not recognize.

Using the news, as well as spies he had planted in the various wards Kaneki was quickly able to catch up to the location of the raids, even with the meager forces that were currently housed in the :Re cafe and the auditorium across the street.

When he said he was going to go join the raids, most of the Aogiri ghouls joined him without question. In fact it was only Touka who elected to stay behind, Kaneki agreed that it was probably better that way to have somebody watch the shop in case it became suspicious. He did not need that many forces anyway, all the king had to do was make an appearance to make it seem like he was leading them.

He was sure the clowns would appreciate this plot twist enough.

Ah, despite beginning the chapter with him though, Kaneki Ken was not the main focus this time around. He had become the nameless king after all. He was merely a living macguffin which everybody now revolved around.

Rather than himself changing, it was actually everybody who slowly began to change around him.

A person who had begun to change drastically, perhaps who had changed the most because of these eventus, was ironically nowhere near him. He was somebody who had barely even talked to Kaneki since the Rose operation.

Ui Koori no longer sat in the high rise luxury of a special class’s office. Instead he had lowered himself to a small bar in the 4th ward. He used to be in charge of the safety of this entire ward, now he was one of the masses.

Due to Kaneki’s decision to support the clowns rather than fight against them, the clown raids had a much more disastrous effect then ever predicted. The main office was almost completely run over, with the only survivors being those members who stood behind Suzuya’s squad, and those who stood behind Matsuri. The CCG was splintered into several surviving offices that had only barely made it through the fight. They became desperate, and started to lean on the self defense force for extra men and equipment.

The amount of disposable soldiers increasing, and the deaths of most of any faction that would be able to contest his leadership caused conveniently by the raid (in particular, Furuta Nimura the surprise heir who had gone missing days before the raid even started), Matsuri Washuu felt his confidence reignited. He spun the great loss as a call to action, a reason to strike rally against the ghouls and strike back permanently so this day could never be repeated.

He seized control of the CCG and the director’s chair. Matsuri who had stood out like a mountain against an approaching tsunami, the wave of clowns unable to cut through him. He had cut them all to ribbons first, and protected every man who stood behind him. No one was able to question anymore, if he would make a good leader for the CCG.

Ui Koori, the man who had tried to stand against him now sat alone in a bar.

Drinking alone had become a hobby of his, well it had always been but after joining the Arima squad there were times when he could go with Take.

He had been wandering like this, head down only looking at his drink. Occasionally he heard the the frantic news reporting on the television, that was the only way he had to keep up with how much time had passed.

Another drink was slid into his field of vision. “That’s the last one for the night.”

Ui raised his eyes just a little bit, but he stared at the bottom of the man’s face rather than looking at his eyes. It was the exact same thing he used to lecture Arima for doing. “I still have money.”

“No you don’t. These drinks were being paid for with my pity, for the sad sack who wanders in here every night like he hasn’t slept in weeks, but even that well has run dry.”

Ui realized he was being rude now. He bowed his head low, the way a proper human being should in this situation. He said sorry even though he didn’t really mean it. There was a paper bag next to him, he picked it up and shoved it in the inside pocket of his coat. Without saying goodbye, he turned around and left.

Outside he looked at the contacts of his phone. Arima, dead but he had not bothered to delete it, Fura, he did not want to bother a new father, Sasaki and Take, those phones had liekly been destroyed a long time ago, one name he could not even bear to look at, and then his mother and father. If he wanted to, he could have enough drinking for money with one press of a putton and one long conversation.

  
The memory of a frail, and sensitive boy who wanted to become an investigator and stand on his own two feet though, made him stop. Ui looked up for just a moment to realize he was standing on a bridge. How convenient, he thought, before dropping the phone off the side and listen to it splash in the water.  

He continued to wander outside, with his head held low and his hair covering his face. When he finally peaked out through his dark bangs, he decided more or less the place he was standing now was where he had meant to end up.

A place with rolling green hills, and stones sticking out from the ground. Ui stood in front of one of them. The name on the stone was a lie though. There was nobody buried underneath his feet. The body had never been recovered.

  
“Sorry, I think - I definitely did a bad job without you. I wanted to become a model investigator, and I thought that was what you wanted for me. I was just trying to act tough when I said I would take responsiblity for the clown operation, but Matsuri took me for my word. He fired me.”

Ui chuckled.

“He looked disappointed when he did it, but that was probably just because he was hoping I would have died in the clown raids. I suppose, I could have spoke up and resisted, but why should I? There was nothing left for me to fight for at the CCG anymore.”

Remembering that phrase again, brought tears to his eyes. The same tears he had drank so hard to suppress. Damnit… really, he didn’t want to do something like this crying. He at least wanted to look cool.

“There’s nothing… there’s nothing left in this world…” Ui picked up the paper bag he had dragged out of the bar with him. He let the paper bag fall away, to reveal a gun. Civilians were not allowed to carry these, but in his time as a Special Class, he had stolen one with RC Capped rounds and hidden it away just in case of an emergency. He cocked it, and placed the barrel right at his head.

Ui could not resist keeping his eyes open. He wanted to see the name in front of him carved out on the gravestone, right until the end. It was the only thing left of them in this world. An empty vacant funeral with no mourners, an empty apartment he was told to take care of,  a box in the corner full of memories, nothing but this name was left…

“I didn’t want to believe Haise killed Arima, if I have a last regret, that’s it.”

It’s as he said. That was it then. He reached with a finger, to curl it around the trigger. He wished just for a moment, if there was a god out there, even if it was just a god of death it would show him some miracle before he died. Suddenly though, a voice coming from nowhere stopped him.

“That’s rather kind of you, Ui-senpai. I’m grateful.”

He thought a ghost was speaking to him. How appropriate, when he looked around he saw Haise Sasaki’s hair had turned completely white. With trained reflexes, Ui immediately whipped his gun around to be aiming at Haise rather than himself.

“To be honest, I would rather you point that gun at me then yourself, too.” Sasaki came closer to him. Ui felt his hand begin to shake with indecision. The CCG’s traitor was in front of him, all he needed was to shoot. The hesitance in his heart, it would disappear if he killed this one ghoul. That was what he had believed all along. Ui held it straight at him, but his hands began to shake. Sasaki closed the distance between them, letting the gun move inches away from his eyepatch. “Come on, the mucous membranes are a ghoul’s weak point, if you shoot me here it’ll go directly to my brain. My only fear is that you’ll miss.”

Ui dropped the gun. He decided, it was better to let Sasaki kill him. “Hurry up already then, torturing me would be useless Matsuri never told me anything. Just indulge in your pointless cruelty, ghoul.”

“Ui-senpai, I wasn’t going to kill you. I was just testing if you would be civil enough to let us talk.” Ui looked at the ground around him, there were kagune tendrils, that had been just below the surface all the way around him, digging in like tree roots. If he had shot, there would have been no difference at all. What a cruel choice that Sasaki gave him right now. Sasaki looked past him, and read the name on the grave. “How odd, I thought if you had said your last goodbyes to anybody it would have been Arima. You seemed to look up to him the most. I guess that’s my mistake, I never really got to know you. I tried, but sometimes things just don’t work out…”

Ui realized, that Sasaki was just babbling awkwardly to fill the silence. “What are you even here for? Did you come to gloat about what you’ve done? To talk my ear off? Either way, you’re annoying me!”

Sasaki chuckled slightly, and scratched at his face. “That’s more like you. I only came to talk. There’s something I’ve learned. While the main contingency of the clowns were focused on the head quarters, I myself led a raid of the main laboratory. Furuta told me something interesting, that he was hiding some kids of his down there. I didn’t think think they would be actual kids, but that’s what we found. Kind of mesed up right?”

  
Ui Koori said nothing in response.

“All of them with kagune implanted from Rize. The lab members we interrogated said that Furuta behind the backs of most of the CCG had already brought in Kanou after Rueshima and started his experimentation. He already had the Quinx surgery as a base model, from the bodies he stole after the Rose operation. You should be familiar with that particular event, it’s why the grave you’re standing on top of right now is empty. Oh, sorry that’s insensitive.”

Ui Koori said nothing in response.

  
“Anyway, we only expected to find the kids but when we were there conducting a full sweep we found something else. Something that Furuta did not tell us about. Something we never would have believed…”

Ui raised his head suddenly. “What?” A miracle that only a god of death could bring.

“The rest… well you should hear it from her. Even I’m not insensitive enough to take the words from her mouth.”

“Who is her?” Ui questioned, a second time with increasing urgency.

Sasaki still close, reached into the inside pocket of his own jacket. He pulled out a letter and presented it to Ui. It was snatched away and torn open. The message on the letter was simple.

‘Koori, please do not look for me.’

He had no idea what it meant. The letter was written in Hairu’s handwriting. That was the important part. Ui suddenly seized Kaneki by the lapels of his own jacket.

“This… this is worse than killing me.”

Kaneki casually looked down, not too bothered by the fact he was getting throttled by a former special class. “I won’t disagree with you. In a twisted world like this hope can seem like nothing more than a cruel lie.”

  
“Stop talking to me…”

“If you don’t believe me, you saw Noro’s remains yourself. The ghoul was long dead but still functioned like a living ghoul, the properties of kagune are quite beyond our understand at times. Even I felt dead for a few good seconds when I was fighting against Arima, only to sudenly…”

  
“Shut up! Like I could ever join the side of the person who murdered arima! Where would the justice be in that? Arima will never rest well.” Ui shook him again.

“Ui-senpai, aren’t you the one who told me that if we don’t keep a clear head that we’ll lose sight of justice. What is justice anyway? Is it meant for the whole world, for one country’s society, or just a few special people?”

Ui’s grip on him finally loosened.

“How about that justice, now.” Sasaki said smiling. Perhaps it was cruel of him to taunt an already broken man. Oh well, he thought. They were all a bit broken at goat, it would help Ui fit in more. He turned around briskly, expecting Ui to follow.

Why would he not. Ui was in hell, and he had appeared, as a sole spider thread offering him a way to climb out. Anybody would accept that one string to hang on to. Ui hesitated for a moment, looking at the letter again. Even if it was a fake, he felt like he still would have believed it.

“I’m sorry, Hairu.” He muttered, to the gravestone marked ‘Hairu Ihei’. “I’m going to disobey you.” With that, still holding the letter tight to his chest he moved to follow Kaneki.

The walk there was silent. They took a circuitous route, Ui was sure so they would not be followed, and if he betrayed them, he would not remember the exact location. It wa s alarge abandoned looking house. In the front, there were children playing. Ui did not pay close attention to them, other than notice the noises they were making. If he had, he might have noticed that some of the children were playing with kagune.

“This place reminds me a little bit of the chateau, that’s why I chose it. The children here, well they should be safe as long as they don’t wander too far away.”

Ui Koori was not listening. He only raised his head again when he noticed Take standing guard in front of the door Sasaki was leading him to. Of course, he made no facial expression, or acknowledgement of his presence after all this time. That was so like him. He turned instead to Sasaki.

  
“I see you were successful.”

“More or less,” Sasaki said, and then looked to Ui gesturing in the direction of the barred door.

“What are you doing? Holding her prisoner to blackmail me into fighting for your side?”

“That’s cruel, Ui-senpai. I wouldn’t want to make you fight all of your previous comrades against your own will. Besides, in your current state you look like you would be pretty useless fighting for the sake of ghouls.”

Sasaki looked over once his disheveled appearance, and sunken in slightly crossed eyes. Unlike Take, he could not maintain enough of a poker face not to react to it.

Ui opened his mouth for some retort, but the sounds of whimpers from within made him shut his mouth with an audible, clack! He grinded his teeth instead, trying to be patient with the unusually long winded Sasaki.

“I was hoping her former boss, would be able to reason with her.”

Ui only nodded. He would be lying if he understood half of what was going on. Still, he was able to reach for the door and grip it without hesitation. When he threw it open, he saw huddled in the corner hugging her knees to her chest, and hiding her face in the divet between, a sobbing female form.

“Y-you.”

  
Hairu.

  
“Are you okay?”

Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu.

  
“Hey.”  
  
Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu.   
  
“Raise your head and speak to me, it’s rude to ignore someone when they’re addressing you.”

Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. HairuHairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu. Hairu.

“Koori you idiot. When Haise gave me the chance to write a letter to you, I tried to warn you not to come.”

Ui had fallen to his knees in front of her at some point. He was only a short distance away from her though. Close enough to touch. He reached out, his hand shaking again. His vision blurred as his eyes slightly went cross fro the shock of the situation. “H… hairu.” Finally he was able to say that name. The one that had been silent on his lips for months. He reached out to touch her on the head, only to have his hand slapped away.

“Listen to me, Koori! I’m not… I’m not Hairu anymore.” She raised her head finally. He was so close that he had no choie but to see it in full detail. Her neck was held together by sloppily done stitches. A small fabric choker coverred in lace was the only thing she wore over them to cover the scars, but it did a bad job of doing so. More importantly though was her eyes, one of them had veins bulging underneath the surface of the skin, and glowing even in the sclera of the eye bright red against a black background.

A kakugan.

  
Had she been made into a Quinx? He suddenly wished he had been paying more attention to Sasaki’s ramblings.

“The quinx… I know I was suspicious of them, but they were still considered humans.” He gave a fumbling attempt at trying to comfort Hairu. All the while he rubbed the reddened back of his own hand. It felt empty.

He regretted it now. Everything in private he had whispered to Hairu about Sasaki. Every last seditious remark.

“It’s nothing like that. They could eat human food. I… I… it would be better if I just starved.”

“What?” Ui tilted his head. Hairu was here, alive. She was dead, but now she was alive. Why would she want to die again? He would lose her all over again. “What?” He repeated a second time, the phrase sounding empty. Is this what Sasaki asked him over to do. “You have to eat, Hairu.”

“I’m not going to eat human flesh! I’m not going to be a monster like they are.”

Ui blinked. The jumbled pieces in his head finally clicked together. This is what Sasaki had meant when he compared her to a ghoul like Noro. To keep living in this state, she would need to continuously eat.

“I want to die as a human.”

She would need to kill and eat in order to live. If to live meant devouring others, she would be no better than a ghoul.

“I’m not such a meanie… that I’d make you kill me, so please just. Turn around and forget you ever saw me. Continue to live happily with the memory of the complete me in your mind.”

“I can’t do that.” Ui said finally, his hand reaching out to touch her once more. Perhaps if he could just confirm that she was real, and not some dream, or momentary illusion that was meant to pass. “You might not know the reason why but… know that I could never do that, please.”

This time instead of slapping him away, something burst out of Hairu. He felt shards tear at his flesh. In the next moment he knew he was bleeding from several places, but she had missed hitting anywhere vital. He knew because he was still breathing a moment after taking a full Ukaku barrage at close range. His eyes flickered up briefly for a moment, and he saw something like a wing pattern left in the tatters of blood on the wall.

“Beautiful…” He muttered, as he fell forward and lost consciousness.

When he woke up next, a ghoul with a strangely shaped beard was patching him up. Ui felt thoroughly disgusted because the ghoul was using his kagune to do so, but he decided not to comment. One because it would be rude, and two because he did not have the strength to open his mouth.

A few minutes later Sasaki came into the room. Behind him, Take was standing, no, following like he was a shadow. “I see you weren’t able to talk any sense into her. That’s too bad.”

Ui found strength where there had been none before. “Can’t you tie her down and force feed her? You’re much stronger than she is, than I am.”  
  


Sasaki looked genuinely remorseful for a moment. Ui could see it in those much too large eyes of him. However, he closed them and shook his head. “I have to fight for the sake of ghouls, Ui-senpai. How much extra resources do you think I have to waste, on a pair of unfortanate human investigators?”

Ui realized. Just like at the bar, he was simply being pitied. Everything Sasaki said made sense, even if Ui did not agree with the side he was fighting for, it made more sense to devote every part of himself to that side. Perhaps, Sasaki had learned something after all. Perhaps that was why he changed.

“You can stay here for a few more days and try again if you want. I wouldn’t recommend any longer, she’s almost at her limit and when a ghoul starves for that long, the hunger begins to induce insanity in them. We had to bar the door to her room, but you must have seen the stains and scratches all over her wall.”

Ui did not raise his eyes to look at Sasaki. He could not, even if it was the impolite thing to do. “I’ll stay until the end.”

  
Sasaki nodded. “Do what you think is best, then. Ah, senpaii, are you alright?”

Ui touched his own face. There were tears there. He had not even realized it. He had begun to cry.

Sasaki shrugged. “I thought you would take this news badly, it’s a bit weird to see you smiling. Oh well. Goodbye.”

He turned around and left. For Ui, there was only one thought on his mind. Hairu was still alive. Even if she might die tomorrow, that in the present was enough happiness for him to continue on.

Take lingered for a moment. He saw that the bandages that Banjou had affixed on him were a little loose, and moved forward, reaching out to grab onto the ends. He pulled the loose ends into an even tighter knot. “It seems the young investigators we’re supposed to raise, are nothing but trouble. For us both.”

  
Take let go and turned around. Ui wished suddenly, that he had a drink in his hand. “So it seems.”

He wondered around the empty house for awhile after Kaneki’s men had left. There were a few other adult ghouls around, but they seemed to be preoccupied with watching the children. Ui, as he wandered into the kitchen finally found what it is he thought he had been looking for. When he opened the fridge though, he found it to be empty.

Then all the children here must not be eating human food, his mind clicked the idea together. Before he could conclude on what else that meant a small and high pitched voice interrupted him.

“Hey there, are you looking for human meat? We’re fresh out.”

Ui looked down to see the child the voice belonged to. He had long hair that went down to his neck, a long set of bangs, and a hat to keep the hair out of his face. He was also wearing a straight jacket. Ui guessed he should have noticed that first, but it was not the strangest thing he had seen today.

“Hajime. You ran drills with zero squad recently. What are you doing here?”

  
Hajime Hazuki laughed. “You really are the sentimental type, huh? I volunteered for the new quinx surgery myself. That’s why I didn’t appreciate it, when my oh so gracious rescuers took me out of that tube. They didn’t want to kill me, so they stuck me in this jacket tight enough to cut off the blood circulation. Hey, can you itch my nose, mister?”

Ui leaned forward and granted the child’s request. Predictably, Hajime snapped his teeth at him, trying to get a bite of a finger. His reflexes were quick enough though, that he withdrew his hand easily.

  
Out of the corner of his eye, Ui noticed. Against the counter there was a bat. “What’s something like that doing here?”

“We’re kids you know. We sometimes like to play baseball.”

Ui’s expression somehow managed to look more tired than it already was. “Why are there nails in the batt then?”

“It’s a really fun version of baseball.” Hajime joked, and then began to laugh at his own joke. Already this child was reminding him of someone but he could not quite put his finger on it. Hajime must have caught him staring in the direction of Hairu, because he immediately called hi out. “You’re here for her, aren’t you?”

Ui felt there was no longer any point in lying. “She’s… my reason.”

“Your reason to do what? Kill? The only thing that’s going to save her now is fresh human meat you know, but I doubt even if you find some that she’ll eat it. You’ll have to overpower her and force it down her throat.”

Ui stopped for a moment, leaning down to pick up something before he walked away.

“Hey, where are you going?” Hajime called after him.

  
“Somewhere,” Ui muttered.

  
“Why did you take that bat?” Hajime asked. Children really asked too many questions, sometimes.

“ I’m going somewhere fun.” He could feel his vision blur again. His eyes were starting to become slightly crossed. It was a bad habit of his. He was handling his stress poorly.

The next moment that Ui remembered though, he felt oddly at ease. He looked down, and saw he was holding a plate with a slab of raw meat on it. That was good, if Hairu had this then she could eat.

This time, slowly and deliberately he opened the door. When it was open just a crack, he peered inside to see Hairu. She fell asleep sometime after they last saw each other. He was glad, she looked much more peaceful than she had been awake.

Ui thought of the gentlest way to wake her possible. Still holding the plate in one hand, he reached forward, and dragged gently the back of his hand against her cheeks. He caressed them, and from the slight touch the flesh felt so warm, no, it felt alive.

“Hairu, wake up.”  
  
Her nose was the first thing to twitch. She must have smelt the blood. One eye opened immediately, it was pure black and red. It spun around wildly before focusing on Ui. Hairu pounced suddenly out of the bed, pinning him against the floor with tremendous strength.

“I’m glad it’s you who came for me after all, Koori! You’d be happy to die for your beautiful Kouhai, wouldn’t you?” There was an insanity leaking into her voice. It sounded off pitch, Ui wondered if Hairu was even the one speaking right now. It looked to him like a case of dmeon possession.

Ui recovered from the shock of being tackled, only to look up at her. “Yes, I would.”

Hairu leaned in close, and smelled the area between his neck and his shoulder. He felt her entire body shake with the inhalation. “You smell so good, Koori. I just want to eat you up.”

“And I want you to eat, but then I’d die.” Ui Koori was smiling once again, somehow he could not control it.  

“Yep, you’d die.” Hairu was inches away from his neck, she even opened her mouth to prove this. All that came out though, was the sound once again of her sobs. The Hairu that was looming over him like some predatory animal, fell on top of him as she broke down into a series of sobs.

“Hairu, I’m sorry. I failed as your senpai. I don’t know the right way to guide you any more. Even so, I want you to live.”

Hairu murmured something underneath the sound of her crying, but Ui could not hear her. He looked to the meat on the floor. Then to Hairu on top of him. He flipped over suddenly, so she would be on the bottom this time, and reached for the plate that had fallen away from him. Ui, without hesitance, or even seeming to realize what he was doing, took a bite of the meat present on the plate.

“It’s okay, if you become a monster. I’ll make it okay, because I’ll become one too.”

  
When Hairu gasped, Ui took the moment to force his lips against hers. The meat that he had partially chewed up, he forced down her throat. His lips lingered on hers. He had always wondered, in some forbidden part of his mind what Hairu’s lips might taste like.

Right now, he only tasted blood.

When he removed his lips finally, Hairu looked at him. Her face turned an odd shade of pink. She averted her eyes. “Koori-senpai, you can’t do something like that. It’s embarrassing.”

Ui smiled at her. There was blood, running from the corners of his lips all the way to his chin. “Hairu, neither of us are in the CCG anymore. I think it’s okay to call me Koori, now.”  
  
She tried it out, stuttering just a little bit in a cute way “K-koori then.”

He would have to get used to the sound of that. He decided, he would live long enough to get used to the sound of that.


	3. In the Case of Take Hirako

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Take Hirako does not understand other people well, but he understands himself much worse.

“Hairu, please. Eat your soup.”

He was still holding it in his hands, hoping she would take it. The bowl was beginning to become hot and uncomfortable to hold, he could still see steam rising off the surface. The ‘soup’ he was speaking of was red like tomato soup, but had chunks of meat floating on the surface.

“Mmmf, no. I dun wanna.”

Hairu puffed her cheeks out and spoke through them like a pouting child. Actually that was exactly what she was. Ui’s brow twitched in annoyance. Normally he would have lectured her, but there was nothing normal about this situation.

The last time he had to… ki… ki… force her to eat. He was hoping this time she would cooperate more willingly. Ui raised the spoon up and blew on it. The steam parted easily and the water rippled with his breath. Calmly, he wrapped his lips around the spoon and tilted it back.

He tightened his face so it would not show, but as he felt the blood trickle down his throat his stomach twisted in revulsion. “See, it’s good…” He said, softly.

Hairu put a finger to her lips, pensieve for a second. Finally, she opened her mouth, deciding. “Ahhhh.”

“You brat,” Ui muttered underneath his breath as he leaned forward to feed her. She was so eager, she bit the spoon, and tilted her head back to down it. As she wiped her hand on the sleeves of the medical gown she was wearing, she averted her eyes from Ui suddenly.

“Hmmm?”

“You know when you take care of me like this…”

“Yeah?”

“You’re just like a butler aren’t you. You’re even wearing a nice vest.”

“Right.”

Ui closed his eyes. He was not sure what he was expecting. He continued with her slowly until the entirety of the soup had been drained. When he stood up once more to leave, Hairu reached out suddenly and grabbed him by the sleeve.

“Koori-senpai, you know. I was thinking lately, because you keep visiting me, that maybe it’s not so bad being alive.”

 Ui’s lips twitched, his head leaned back towards her. “Yeah?” he repeated back a second time.

“If I’m alive then, I can see Arima again. I hope he’ll be happy to see me, even though I turned out like this. Maybe he’ll start treating me special like he did Haise.”

Ui smiled.

“Right. You just want to be spoiled.”

Arima Kishou was dead.

He kept smiling right until he closed the door. Unfortanately for him, there was a worm crawling along the floor watching his change in expression. He looked down at Hajime, still managing to get around quite easily in his straight jacket.

“They still have you in that thing? It’s inhumane.”  
  
Ui was frustrated about something else. He just wanted to complain.

Hajime smiled. “They don’t take it kindly when you mention slaughter around children, you know, s-l-a-u-g-h-t-e-r.”

“Yeah, I can spell.” Ui wondered why he was exchanging sass with a child, or what exactly the 12 year old Hajime considered himself if he was not a child. He wasn’t too concerned about it, he wanted to move forward. So he did.

“You know Mr- A human body will only last so long. They’re more easy to strip down dry than you think, especially if you drain the blood,” Hajime called after him.

Ui shrugged his shoulders. “What are they teaching at the academy these days?”  


 

♔

 

“So this is the ghoul cafe,” Ui muttered to himself as he strode through the doors of Re.

The waitress at the counter rolled her eyes. “Try not to mention that out loud, I’m still trying to run a business.”

Ui had been present at the original Anteiku raid. He felt a bit disappointed that he let this many remnants of the ghoul cafe slip through his fingertips. There was no reason to let that lady know that. 

He did not know what to say. If he was indeed speaking to a ghoul. He stared at her for a moment.

“Basement.”

Ui did not know what to say to that either. He hurriedly bowed his head, and then moved on bursting right through the back room door.

“You know we really should keep that locked too…” Touka thought to herself, as she began to pour another coffee.

 

♔

 

“Sasaki!”  
  
The scene Ui stumbled upon, was a barely lit room with a single light hanging from a loose wire on the ceiling. It looked like the interrogation rooms Ui was used to seeing at the CCG. He figured Sasaki must have remodeled it slightly. From his position on the staircase though, he could not see who Sasaki was speaking too, only his back.

As he traveled down the stairs a face came into view. One that was half covered by the bangs of his own haircut.

“How did he get down here without permission? Uwa! This isn’t the bathroom, you took a wrong turn Ui-san.”

“Furuta?”

Ui saw in front of him, the man who he had thought was his last hope. The same man that went missing before the clown raids, after making him stake everything on himself.

“You remembered me after all this time. I’m so touched!”

It had only been a few weeks. Furuta must have been a lonely person.  
  
“I should tell Touka to lock the doors,” Sasaki muttered to himself, then looked to address Ui. “Is there something you wanted, former special class?”

 Ui did not even flinch under the perceived insult. He had come here with purpose, but gotten distracted by the sight of Furuta Nimura. For a prisoner, he looked rather comfortable. Rather than being tied up, even with a straight jacket like Hajime was, Furuta sat freely on a chair, and in front of him on the interrogation table was a freshly made cup of coffee.

Ui wondered for a moment if the waitress had made it for him.

“Why isn’t Hairu being fed? There was no food for her in that fridge, or for any of the children.”

“Human meat goes bad easily. When she refused it, I didn’t want it to go to waste so I let the ghouls eat it instead. The children can just walk out to town to eat. The CCG would never put out a missing bulletin for them, because that would mean admitting that they were experimenting on children in the first place.”

“You’re feeding ghouls?”

Sasaki tilted his head. He didn’t understand why Ui of all people had not made the connection. “You know, Ui-senpai. I am a ghoul. Didn’t you say so yourself, once?”

“...”

“Besides, if I want to fight for the sake of ghouls, I can’t starve my entire army. What sense would that make.”

Ui wondered if Haise had any mercy left in his heart at all for the CCG who raised him. He seemed fully prepared to bite their hand again, just as he did with Arima.

“If you want to join meat for Hairu, you should join my provisions squad. It’s more efficient than say, hunting down people in an alleyway with a bat.”

Ui froze. He realized he had not said something in quite some time. Sasaki seemed content to keep talking.  
  
“I can’t…”

“Yes you could. It’s for the same reason you could do it for the first time, because you know. You’ve already killed humans. Furuta told me the secret he was hiding behind all those masks in the clown raids. I think you were one of the few to realize on your own though.”

Killed.  
  
Killed?

He had killed. Ui looked at his own hands.

“I’ll need a quinque. A bat isn’t good enough.”

Sasaki smiled. It was as fake as the smile he showed Matsuri during the special class meeting.

“Don’t worry Ui, the provisions squad only hunts bad people under my instructions. They’re crimminal underground types nobody ever knew and nobody would miss.”

Ui hesitated.

“Even so, they’re still people. They need due process, that’s unethical.”

Sasaki reached forward and put a hand on Ui’s shoulder. “If you don’t, then Hairu will starve. Before she starves, she’ll go mad and kill again before somebody finally puts her down. How about them ethics?”

Ui shivered. There was something familiar about the way Sasaki spoke right now. He could not quite place it. He heard something in the distance. A faint whisper. Was it somebody laughing?

“I’ll need a quinque.”

“Take will brief you then. The two of you can make up afterwards, it’s sade when old friends fight.”  
  
He had not noticed Take was in the room until now. His old friend Take. The one he thought betrayed him. There was more Ui wanted to ask, about why he lied to Hairu about Arima, about why Arima needed to die for all of this to happen, but for the moment his only priority was finding more food for Hairu.

 Take stood up and wordlessly began to do as Sasaki instructed him. In that moment, Ui wondered whether Take had been following Sasaki this entire time like his shadow. Then again, he was not particularly worried about him either. Take had already chosen his side. Just like Ui was choosing, right now to be on Hairu’s side.

♔

 

Take Hirako was a subordinate.

 #2 was a good descriptor for the summary of his entire existence. There was a time where he led his own squad, but that time had passed now. He was sure, wherever he was, that fox faced boy Kuramoto was doing a better job in his stead.

 Take always found himself trailing behind a figure in white hair. When he met Sasaki again for the second time, his hair had turned white. If he believed in a thing like destriny, he was sure it would have been hit.

 The gentleness he witnessed as he held onto Arima’s corpse though, that was the last time he saw the Sasaki he knew. He supposed it did not matter what he thought. As long as he conintued to follow the man Kishou Arima trusted.  
  
He was a subordinate, after all.

 When Sasaki knelt in front of Takatsuki Sen’s soon to be corpse, that tenderness was entirely gone.  
  
“Take, can you order two of zero squad to stay behind. I want them to carry her out.”

“She’s dead weight. I don’t want to put them at risk.”  
  
Sasaki turned his head for a moment. Take had spoken without thinking. Those children whose last hope had died in front of them, all they had was Take himself now. However, Sasaki himself did not seem angry that Take raised an issue with them. Instead, he was thinking on what he said, quite seriously.

 “If I kill all of our pursuers, do you think they’ll be safe then?”

 Take had been with the rest of the squads stationed at Cochlea a few minutes ago. He knew the only ones left that would be able to harm them, were Mougan and Tanakamaru. He had just seen their faces, as they wished him luck in backing up and protecting Arima.

 He did not protect Arima though. He had merely watched as the man slit his own throat. The only one those children had left was him now.

 “You two, stay behind us and carry Takatsuki Sen. Shio, Rikai, Yusa, you’re with me. We’re going to back up Sasaki.”

 From behind Sasaki is where Take watched it. Kiyoko Aura being sliced in two right at the waist. If Sasaki aimed a little lower, she might have lived on without her legs.

 “It’s only fair right? You cut two of banjou’s gang in half. Even a cornered rat, will try to bite a cat.”

 As Tanakamaru charged at him screaming vengeance, Sasaki merely cracked his knuckle in response and readied his defense.

 All five members of Zero squad made it out. They were safe. The next night he slept easily on the floor of the Re Cafe room he was allowed to stay in, while the five squad members argued on how to share two beds between them.

 He dreamt of nothing in particular. It was not unusual though, Take considered himself too boring of a person to dream most nights.

♔

 In a few days, news of clown attacks hit on the CCG. It was exactly as the man in the basement had told him. Because of that, Take Hirako was once again standing behind Sasaki’s back as he talked with Rank 1 Furuta Nimura.

 He was not sure if he was a good judge of this or not, but they seemed to be having a pleasant conversation.

 “Where did you get that coffee?”

 Furuta picked it up and sipped it lightly. He had no intention of touching it at all actually, until Sasaki mentioned it in such a harsh tone. Then he had absolutely no choice.

  
“The waitress brought it to me. I know your game though, you think I’m going to talk easier now just because I’ve been softened by the sight of a beautiful woman. You’re completely right.”

 Furuta stopped for a moment waiting for a laugh. Haise merely stared at him blankly. Take did the same, but he was farther away, and his face was harder to make out. Actually, it was likely that Furuta had forgotten he was there entirely.

 “I want you to tell me how you got the clowns to follow you.” Sasaki leaned forward on the table once more. There was a file he pushed towards Furuta, in it, pictures of Donato, Roma, Shikorae, Uta, Nico, and Itori. So he had been doing research.

 Furuta was almost impressed, he wondered what he did to Roma to make her squeal. It could not have been torture, she probably would have just laughed it off.

 “That’s a boring story. You should know the answer already.” He leaned forward and cupped the side of his face with his hand. “I have no interest in helping a lazy king!” He stuck his tongue out.

Haise Sasaki looked at the adult man who was currently sticking his tongue out at him. He picked up a picture from the file, sliding it over to Furuta. “Souta, the clown most acting independently on his own. I saw you, both with Rize, and at the Gourmet club.”

 “Oh, those were good times. I wonder if Mr. MM, remembers them as fondly as I do.”  
  
“The clowns have no leader, and no record of even a founder.” Furuta smiled. So Roma had not actually told him that much at all. “Yet they show organizational capabilities beyond the level of even most ghoul gangs. How did you convince them to follow you?”

 Furuta put a finger to his nose for a moment, thinking. Had Kanekii earned this yet? He was so eager to know right now, it was almost cute. He was a child just waiting to be taught.

 “The clowns love famous people.”

“That’s it?”

 “If you think that’s too simple of a reason, then you’re never going to convince the clowns to join you. That’s what you want isn’t it?”

 Sasaki stayed silent. Furuta was fine with that, it gave him more room to talk.

 “That’s a surprise. I was convinced when you came down here, you were going to ask me how to stop them. You wanted to talk to the Washuu, didn’t you?”

 Sasaki squinted his eyes as he looked away. Furuta recognized the gesture, it was the same childish one he had when his hair was all black. “There’s only one Washuu left now anyway, and I never quite liked him.”

“I suppose that’s as good of a reason as any. Who needs reasons, anyway.” This time he sipped the coffee with more purpose. It tasted cold and bitter. He liked it. He would have to tell the waitress that sometime.

 “There’s one more thing I want you to tell me about. You collaboration with Kanou-”

 Furuta raised a finger suddenly, cutting him off. He wagged it again. “That’s a story for another time.”

 “Those children you mentioned, all 100 of them. Could they be an extension of the Quinx project? Is that the reason you arranged for Rize to be returned to you, and for the corpse of one of the Quinx children to be stolen.”

 Furuta stopped his finger wagging. That was almost smart deduction. Which meant there was no way Sasaki Haise could have come up with it himself. Roma and himself, that meant there had to be one more mystery source. Oh, he was going to have a fun time figuring it out.

 “Let me brag to you then, about all of my beautiful children. Do you think that makes me a good father? I wouldn’t know, I have no point of reference.”

Furuta then, began to describe in excited and giddy detail just what he had been planning to do. What he had almost accomplished before Haise suddenly captured him. Take began to tune it out. When he heard about children being used that way, it reminded him of the smiling faces of the Zero Squad.

This morning they had come to wake him up. They brought him fresh coffee, but Rikai got upset at Shio when he spilled it on Take’s lap on accident. Take did not mind. In a quiet and dull voice, he told them it was okay.

♔

“I have the layout of the lab memorized,” Take said in Goat’s next meeting. Sasaki looked away for a second, as if he was changing his mind.

“Take and Zero squad will come with me, that’s all we should need for the infiltration. Tsukiyama, I want you to lead the rest of them and split them up into teams as you see fit to back up the clowns as they hit the key targets marked on the map. None of our forces should go directly to assault the CCG 1st ward headquarters, Juuzou will cut them down for sure.”

 “Oui, my king.”

 Kaneki clicked his own teeth.

“Unfortunate, I was hoping we’d be able to speak with Uta as well.”

 Take remembered. Furuta had given Kaneki his best guess as to at which points of the raid, the major clown figures would be. He was being rather forward with information suddenly. Take tried not to think about it too hard, those kinds of things should be left for Kaneki to worry about.

 Just then the meeting was interrupted by the sound of a swinging door. Take looked back to see a face covered in unkempt white hair, wearing a black and white hoodie. It took him a moment to recognize, former rank 2 Seidou Takizawa.

“Wait! I’m comin’ to the lab” He was standing with his hands in his pockets, and terribly poor posture. “Nico told me, that’s the best place to find some RC Suppressor drug.”

 Kaneki stopped for a moment. Take knew what he was thinking about. He had been so busy with Furuta lately, he had almost entirely forgotten about the sleeping Akira. Take wondered if that was for the best. It would be a shock to her, to wake up to this reality.

 “You can join my team then. Please take care of Akira… uh. What should I call you?”

 “Seidou? Takizawa? Owl? Whatever. Don’t care.”

 “I see. Well then, you’ll be accompanying us to the lab, Owl.”

 Take leaned forward to speak at Sasaki’s shoulder. “Are you okay with these teams?”

 “You’re with me, so…”

 That was right. From now on Take would always be behind him. He was the right hand of the new king.

 Take followed behind him the entire time. As they snuck their way through the lab, he only hesitated when Furuta’s words turned out to be true. 100 tubes marked ‘rize 1-100’ unfolded in front of him.

 “There’s no way we’ll sneak all of these out of here, and still maintain cover.” Take said, holding the hat of a lab engineer over his face in case anybody was watching his conversation.

 Kaneki next to him, and three of zero squad behind him, all of them were dressed similiarly in stolen suits. Everything was going well, but suddenly Take had become concerned. He didn’t want to lose one of these children as they were making their way out. He wanted to save all of them. No matter how unrealistic his logical side told him this would be.

 “With Seidou going off on his own, it was unlikely we would be able to keep cover the entire time anyway. I realized as soon as he asked to join, the best way would be to sneak our way in, and fight our way out.”

 Take stopped. He hated speaking out, yet. “There’s only five of us.”

 Kaneki drew out his kagune. It slashed like a precise claw at one of the electrical wires keeping the tanks on the grid.

“There’s soon to be one hundred of us. I’ve thought about this ahead of time, it’s unlikely the officers they have guarding the labs are aware of what the scientists are doing. The sight of one hundred children with kagune will catch them too off guard to be able to fight properly. Besides, we don’t have to exterminate all of them, we just have to punch a decent sized hole in their forces to escape to.”

 Take listened to all of this without interrupting once. If that was what Sasaki wanted, then it was his job to make it happen. He only had one question.

“The children, how are you going to get them to support you?”

 “I’ll tell them the truth. They’ve been raised to hate ghouls. That Furuta is on my side, and he gave them a power similiar to mine so that they can fight up against the ghouls known as the Washuu.”

 His eyes widened. The secret it took Arima years to share with him. The one he did not even dare tell Ui. “Are you sure they can be trusted with that information?”

 Kaneki walked forward. He put a finger to his lips.

 “Of course, children love keeping secrets.”

 Take had been following Sasaki this whole time, without once questioning what it was Arima saw in him, or why he had chosen him of all people. Now though, he thought he understood just a little bit.

 Sasaki Haise was completely empty on the inside. Just like Arima had once told him.

♔

 The operation a complete success, Take Hirako once again returned to the Re: Cafe with Sasaki Haise. He sat quietly on a stool in the corner of the bar, while he watched Kaneki discuss with the ghoul waitress.

She was a nice person. He didn’t really understand why she was so mad at Sasaki at the moment.

“You’re starting to act just like them!”

 Sasaki tilted his head in a confused way. “Who are you talking about? The clowns? They’re ghouls too you know, just like you and me.”

 Her finger scratched against the counter and rolled up into an annoyed fist. “That’s not the same thing. You’re not the same thing.”

 Kaneki closed one of his eyes and the other he activated his kakugan in. Ever since the first day he had announced Goat’s name and taken it off, Kaneki had stopped wearing that eyepatch entirely. “I eat human meat, make a kagune, and the ccg wants me dead. I think I’m close enough. I’m fighting for the sake of ghouls you know, I should probably consider myself one of them.”

 Kirishima Touka bit her lip. There was something that annoyed her about this entire situation, but she could not put it into words. “You’ve changed.”

“Of course I did, we haven’t seen each other in three years. Did you expect I would be exactly the same?”

 She averted her eyes. No, that would be impossible to expect. She had already known that. If she did not know that, she would still have told herself it over and over again. However, even this Kaneki was different from the pudding haired one she watched sneak into her shop and sneak glances at her.

 The source of the changing Kaneki. She wondered if it had anything to do with the man they now kept in the basement, or maybe the man who killed her mother, and the woman who killed her adoptive father.

 “Besides Touka, you’ve known Uta was a clown this entire time, and you still considered him an ally.”

“He’s right, Touka,” Uta said.

Suddenly, despite the tension in the room, Kaneki, Touka, and Take all looked to the back of the cafe. Uta was sitting on top of one the tables, his knees drawn up with him.

 “Boo!’ he said, opening his pitch black eyes with a small smile.

 “You really need to start locking those doors, Touka.”

 Uta jumped down from the table. Rather than Touka and Kaneki, he decided to sit in the stool immediately next to Take.

Take took a breath. “Is it necessary for us to sit so close, the whole bar is open.”

 “It’s fine.” Uta said.

 Take could swear he had just moved an inch closer. “If you say so, I was just wondering if you wanted more space.”  It was the proper thing to do, he didn’t particularly care either way. Even if it was a ghoul currently breathing down his neck.

 “I’m glad to see you survived, Uta.”

 Uta’s black eyes looked back to Kaneki for a moment. “Yes, your friend Mucchan tried everything in his power to make sure I didn’t. I should tell you about that sometime.”

 Even the mention of Rank 1 Mutsuki, did not seem to change the expression in Sasaki’s face at all. At the moment he was too focused on Touka. She had finished pouring another cup of coffee.

 “Touka, have you been taking those to Furuta?”

 “He needs something to do, or else he might go mad.”

 Kaneki immediately reached out for Touka’s shoulder. It was the first time he’d touched her, at least since she smacked him on the day of his return to :Re.

 “Touka, be careful please. Furuta is dangerous.”

 The concern in his eyes. Now that was a familiar part of Kaneki. She almost stopped for a moment. Almost.

Touka brushed his hand off of her. “He hasn’t eaten in three weeks, he couldn’t make a kagune even if he wanted to.”

 As she closed the door behind her, Take noted the cafe seemed quite empty without Touka’s presence.

 Uta was quick to fill it up again with conversation. Rather than the sulking Kaneki in the corner, his current target seemed to be Take himself.

“I heard you’re a criminal now just like me, how does it feel?”

 “It’s harder to buy pet food now. I’ll probably have to start feeding them with scraps of meat off my own plate.”

 “You have pets?”

“Two dogs. They’re loud, and not particularly special.”

 Take could feel Uta getting closer again. “You know, it would be easier to get around if they stopped broadcasting your face everywhere. You should start wearing a mask in missions, like Kaneki.”

 Take thought about the eyepatch mask that Kaneki wore. If he remembered correctly, he got all of the quinxes masks just like that for an undercover mission at the bureau.

 “That seems like it’d be a troublesome thing to find.”

 Uta’s small smile grew. Take realized what he was reminded of. A cat. He never liked cats, like Akira Mado did. He was more of a dog person.

 “Well, I am trouble, but I still make masks quite cheap. I’m sure you can afford it on a terrorist’s salary.”

 Take considered it for a moment. He could not picture himself wearing any kind of mask. Uta had already leaned in close to observe his face though.

 “When you look at me like that, you look just like an arctic fox. I’m already inspired.”

 “No, thank you.” He took a sip of the coffee Touka prepared for him earlier. The closeness did not bother him much at all, except in that it made it awkward for him to keep drinking his coffee. “I have a plain face, most normal people would forget it before they could recognize me.”

 Uta leaned back finally and pointed at his own chest.

“What about me? I remember you, ever since that first time we played together with Arima.”

 Take blinked. “You’re obviously an exception. You’re not most people.”

Uta let out a gasp. For the first time, he dropped the near constant bemused smile on his face and frowned instead.

“Are you saying I’m a weirdo? That hurts my feelings you know.”

 Take genuinely could not tell at the moment, if he was offended, or just joking around again. He decided to react to neither option. He took another sip of his coffee instead.

 “It’s not mean if it’s honest.”

♔

 Take Hirako walked alone in the snow. One of the children handed him an umbrella on the way out, so he was not particularly concerned about it.

 Peering through the window blinders of the Hysy mask shop, he saw Arima’s face hanging on the wall, as well as No face’s Auction mask. It seemed he was not going to learn anything from this far away.

 Uta opened the door by himself. A dusty old shop, decorated to looke like an insane asylum, with large throw covers thrown over most of the displays. Take wondered if he had to close his shop due to clown raids.

 Hanging on the wall in the same spot where he saw Arima’s face, there was Haise, and Shinohara too. As he stared at the masks hanging on the wall, he wondered how exactly Uta the shop keeper had made them so accurate. .

 “Welcome.”

 There was his welcome. It was a little lady. Take looked away from the dozens of pairs of eyes that had been staring at him on the wall. No face stood in the door, the same one he had walked through.

Suddenly he could not see the snow from the outside world anymore. He was younger, and wearing the same mask he had been when they first met. In his hand there was a mask that looked like the upper part of a dog’s face.

 It reminded him of the black dober's mask.

No, it was a fox instead.

“Your mask is ready.”

“Alright.”

 Take’s eyes turned pitch black.

 His eyes opened again.

 From the couch he sat up, and looked at the sleeping children. A dream? It was the first one he could remember having in years.

 He looked at Zero squad. Rikai had her own bed, Shio, Yusa, and the others were all crammed into one bed. That was the decision they came to. They were small enough that they could easily divide the bed into fourths if they wanted. Take wondered if they were used to sleeping in such cramped quarters like this.

 “I need to wake up.”

♔

The next morning, as usual Take was following right behind Sasaki’s shoulder. The two of them had returned to the house where they hid the children, and the majority of them had lined up in front of the house to be counted off.

 Take did not know for sure, but he assumed after their conversation, Ui had just returned to Hairu’s room. Perhaps he was hovering outside of it, and worrying. That seemed like him.

 “They could easily be divided into squads, we could split the zero squad members up to serve as squad heads, or just pick responsible ones like Mayuzumi.”

 “What is this for?” Take spoke up.

 “We’re going to use these children against the CCG. I want them confronted with the fact, that they’ll kill anything that looks like a ghoul, even a child.”

 “Kill?”

 Sasaki right then, with his hands behind his back turned to address the gathered children. “If we want to take down the evil Washuu, it’s important that we cooperate together, stay together, and most of all live. If you ever get injured then run, even if you lose your arms and legs. They’re out to exterminate us, all we have to do to beat them is survive.”

 The children cheered at him. Take wondered if this was what Sasaki meant, when he said he wanted to treat the Quinx as his own children.

 Sasaki turned back to him again. “I want you to lead this squad. Once Ui is done with the foraging squad, then he might be easily convinced to join your side too. It’ll be just like an expanded zero squad.”

 Take said nothing.

 The days where they were all under Arima Kishou together, Take at his right side, and Ui at his left. Sasaki the newest member eager to learn from all of them. Is that what he wanted?

 “Will you need me after I’m finished organizing them?”

 Sasaki stopped for a second. “If you want to go somewhere else when you’re done you can. Nobody told you you had to follow me around all the time.”

That was true.  
  
Take had just assumed that was his place.

♔

The door to the HYSY mask shop was nothing like it was in Take’s dream. There were no human faces hanging from the wall, the art decor was much more gothic too.

Before he could reach for the door handle, Uta opened it first.

The look on his face was smug, he was sure, but Take did not want to react to it.

“Are you here for a mask?”

“Not really.” Take answered.

“This is a mask shop, you know.”


	4. In the Case of Tsukiyama Shuu

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tsukiyama Shuu is a selfish person.

Kaneki was very strong, but that was not the case at first.

_A distant, long forgotten weakness._

_He couldn’t choose… the time he didn’t have the strength to choose… You might be the continuation of that Kaneki back then._

Tsukiyama’s eyes narrowed as he saw the pure white-haired Kaneki appear in front of him.

“Welcome my dear Kaneki. First, let us let what has transpired in the past be water under the bridge.”

“Tsukiyama…”

He looked at the clearly hesitating Kaneki directly.

What a vigorous weakness, he thought.

 

♔

 

Tsukiyama Shuu, lately, had dreams about falling. He wondered if they could even be called dreams if they happened in the daytime. He would be sitting by the bar of the cafe, listening to Kaneki speak, nodding along like a faithful left hand would, only to suddenly experience vertigo.

_The sensation of falling, as if he had no attachment to the ground in front of him, as if gravity no longer applied. He could feel the earth spinning around him… in the distance he heard panicked screams._

“Tsukiyama?”

They were his screams. In the back of his mind. Begging Kanae not to save him again. Forever, on repeat.

Tsukiyama reached a hand out to steady himself against the bar. Kaneki did not seem to notice the gesture. Touka looked down for a second, before quickly hearing the cry of a coffee pot fully steamed and wandering away to attend to it.

“Es Tut mi Leid, let’s continue. You really want to leave me in command of all of the ghoul forces?”

Kaneki’s big eyes turned to the map that they had laid out on the counter rather than Shuu. For some reason, that felt much more comfortable.

“Well, you won’t be directly in command of all of them. Not really, we’ll split off once. I’ll split off from the main force, and then you’ll decide from there how to split ourselves up to back up each priority target.”

_The rush of wind. Red, splashed and spread out from Kanae’s back as they came hurtling towards him. Tsukiyama told them, he begged, that they had to live instead of him._

Matsumae, Mairo, Yuma, Aliza… 

There were too many important things that disappeared from this world already. Don’t you think, Kaneki?

“The one who's meant to lead ghouls, is the one eyed king, don’t you think, Kaneki? I am merely my king’s servant.”

“I think it’s better if I’m a distant enemy. The one who slaughtered the Washuu family… who rules the ghouls with an iron fist of terror and slaughter, the one eyed king.”

Tsukiyama gaze dropped for a moment. He never expected such words to come from Kaneki’s mouth. He supposed it shouldn’t have been a surprise. The person he remembered, had always been flipping between two poles. The face he showed to Tsukiyama, and the one he showed to little princess Hinami, they had always been so distant.

It seemed he finally decided.

“I just hope you’re not trying to avoid directly facing your former friends at the CCG, is all,” Tsukiyama’s eyes raised, his finger having found its way to framing the curvature of his chin. 

“You mean the people who forced suppressants down my throat until I was constantly vomiting, who carved the eyeballs out of my skull, and dragged me by the hair into the depths of prison until I had forgotten everything. I don’t think they’re friends anymore now that I’ve remembered the truth, Tsukiyama.”

Tsukiyama froze, a tremolo in his chest. It would be a lie to say he did not still feel loneliness when he thought of his separation from Kaneki, when he thought of Haise. He thought it was horrible for Kaneki to be forced to work as a ghoul investigator, but Miss Manager had told him otherwise. 

_Do you really let go of your friends so easily?_

_What if right now, I grabbed you and Touka by the neck and dragged the both of you to a rooftop and dropped you both at the same time._

_What if I forced her to die saving you?_

_Would you still be able to conduct this king business as if nothing had happened?_

_No, I know you wouldn’t. You’d hunt me down to the ends of the earth. The same way you did with that gourmet club, a long time ago._

The image was in his mind, Kaneki choking down bits and pieces of former ghouls. Tsukiyama forced himself to watch. He had known all of these people, discussed opinions and feelings with them, seen them laugh and cry.

He sold them all out to Kaneki to curry a little favor.

Why hasn't he done any of that then?

_Even if my body will break, even if I have to sacrifice my own life! I will protect you! You are my everything!_

That was right, if he tried to do that right now he would simply die. He remembered it well, the clear taste of defeat. On a large rooftop overlooking the city. Kaneki stood looking out at the raid underneath him.

_As he climbed the long stairways, Tsukiyama had already heard it in the distance. Nishiki and Kaneki, making casual conversation. He heard not details in the whispers, but part of him already knew. Damnit, Nishiki, stop him even if you have to chop his arms and legs off, Tsukiyama begged._

_“I won’t let you go.”_

_When he reached the top his beautiful appearance had become completely disheveled. He felt the sweat running already down his face. It had become mixed, it tasted salty. He let his breaths out in heavy puffs._

_"If something happens to you, what am I supposed to do…?”_

_“Tsukiyama…”_

_His head, his head, it pounded. The feelings he usually suppressed they were bubbling up and out of him. He felt it pressing against his eyes. He felt it, his veins, they were pulsing. The feelings of a ghoul were really monstrous, weren’t they?_

_“Then, for what purpose have I been enduring? So I’ll never know it. You won’t give it to me my… greatest delicacy!”_

_Kaneki was not moved at all by his words. He stared ahead with the same balnk eyes that Kaneki always seemed to look at him with. There was nothing in them. No matter how much Tsukiyama wanted something to be there._

_Tsukiyama opened his eyes, and his kakugan flared. He was no longer a beautiful gentleman, he opened his mouth wide and beared his canines like a raving animal._

_“Theeeen I’ll have you die right heeeeereeeeeeeeee!!!!"_

Despite that bold declaration, he had lost.

Then, another time.

_He heard the sound of clashing blades. The two of them, they were not ghouls, they were fighting like two knights. Blow for blow, parry, block, parry, sway, sway, shift, sway._

_“ 'I will fight in order to survive'... you’re surrounded by the CCG, your guards are pretty much all dead… in this situation...”_

_Tsukiyama pierced through his Kagune, but Kaneki shifted his whole body to the left just in time. He missed him, damn it._

_“That is none of your concern!”_

_He had to pierce through. He kept striking forward. Kaneki’s defense was far too flexible, he could defend him at every angle, but Tsukiyama knew. Haise would not take him seriously, he could not decide, he was weak._

_That was what he needed to take advantage of._

_“How exactly do you plan to survive by yourself? This choice is pretty much suicide!”_

_Geez, this guy, Tsukiyama thought. Kaneki was the last person who should be lecturing him about making the choice to move straight ahead into suicide. He remembered it well back then, Kaneki’s back stretching out against the cityscape. The image was something burned into his mind._

_At the time, and for a long time after Tsukiyama had worried himself near to death, trying to understand just what he could have been thinking. Why he would throw his life away so easily back then when everybody wanted him to live._

_Now he knew though. Standing on top of others, stepping forward when he knew it was Mairo, Matsumae, Yuma, Aliza, father, all of them he would be leaving behind. He knew how lonely that feeling was._

_That was what Kaneki had always felt when trying to stand up on his own even_ _when Tsukiyama agreed to follow him. For Tsukiyama, those were happy memories, but to Kaneki the flavor must have been a much more bitter nostalgia._

_“Dove, I will defeat you! Die!”_

_Parry, parry, sway, step, step, thrust. Their step sequence had a certain rhythm to it, it was like a dance between the two of them. Tango! Despite how close they had become though, they could never touch. They understood each other’s rhythm perfectly well, they always moved away in perfect timing when the other moved closer._

_It was a lonely dance, solo._

_Opera!_

_He was sorry._

_He felt so lonely, now that they had become strangers. Ever since that day he had begun slowly to die. Tsukiyama ate and ate, never knowing why he felt so empty. Now that he knew, his stomach would not accept anything. It had been poisoned. He was slowly being poisoned._

_He was dying. The rare delicacy he thought he had been chasing, the strange spice, it had turned into poison. He knew it for a long time, actually. When Haise Sasaki held a blade at his neck, he had already accepted it._

_He was dying. He would die._

_"I will protect you! You are my everything!"_

_Yet, there was someone who wanted him to live._

Live.

He needed to live.

The only way for a ghoul to live now was to depend on the one eyed king. That was the unfortunate circumstance which their world had burned to.

“Tsukiyama?”

_Shuu-sama!_

Tsukiyama blinked, snapping back into reality.

“Is there something on my face?”

“It’s just odd not to see you wearing that eyepatch.” He reached out and put a hand again on Kaneki’s shoulder. “It’s as I said before. Even when you walk, there are times you’ve killed an ant, right? That’s what it means to be strong. Don’t worry yourself too much with what lies underneath you.” 

Right, that was how Tsukiyama Shuu saw the world. It was just like the moon hanging high over a lake at night. If the lake was peaceful, as long as no one disturbed it, the water would stay completely still, like glass. It would only reflect back what you saw into it. You could mistakenly believe that the water was completely motionless. Underneath the surface though, there were things like fish, and insects, all moving about and moving the water with them. There was no such thing as true peace, but as long as you looked at it from just the right angle, and did not worry about what was underneath, you could at least see the illusion of it.

That was how Tsukiyama Shuu had decided to live.

“I’m glad you sympathize with me, Tsukiyama. Now, these targets. We should only worry about saving the most major components of the clowns from the CCG, Donato, Nico, Itori…”

Tsukiyama remembered Uta too, but he looked at the main headquarters where Uta’s name had been marked down at the map. That would likely have been too difficult of a target to seize, even with Kaneki leading instead of him.

Uta had come with him to help save Kaneki during the Aogiri raid. He fought with him side by side against the ghoul Noro. It had been a delicious sampling. Kaneki was letting him go so easily, perhaps he really had grown.

Grown strong enough to choose, grown strong enough to leave others behind.

“Are we going to capture them like you did with mon’ami in the basement?”

Souta the clown. His friend who survived the dinner club. They had talked too, a few times in passing. He was the one who gave the suggestion that he invite Rize to the dinner club.

“Something like that, I was thinking it might be easier if we simply inspired them to join our side.”

“Oh, Kaneki, I had a question about that. Why, when you were going out, did you let Fuka go with you like that? If you knew you were about to face a dangerous enemy, you should have brought more reliable backup.”  
  
You should have brought me, he thought.

“Tsukiyama, you don’t have to worry about things like that. Fuka is more suited to the task of walking in my shadow.”

He didn’t have to worry. Kaneki was right.

So he shouldn’t.

He should put all faith in his king.

 

♔

  
After that conversation, Tsukiyama had gone out of his way to ask his shark-faced friend a question. “Fuka-

“Fuka-kun, was it? Obviously, I am grateful for your assistance during the Cochlea operation, but you have to understand your proper place here.” 

“My place? I understand it well enough. I am my king’s subordinate. You are my king’s wallet.”

 Tsukiyama clicked his teeth together and grinded them. He sighed. And then he sighed again, louder this time.

Chie, who had been typing away endlessly at her laptop, looked up finally. They had been in the same room all this time, but old friends did not necessarily need to spend the entire time chatting away to be comfortable with one another. He had only spoken to her once an hour ago, and asked if she was going to hack the CCG just like in the movies.

Chie made such a disgusted face at that notion that Tsukiyama had not even needed her to answer him verbally to understand what she meant.

“What do you think, Hori?”

 She would understand what was troubling him, Tsukiyama was completely sure.

“What about?” She blinked, and stared at him blankly.

Oh, well. He would just need to explain himself. He sighed a third, loudest time, blowing out a puff of air as he did. He turned his hand around to serve as a pedestal to rest his chin upon. What an elegant pose! What a picture of sadness! He was sure that Chie would likely want to capture this image and make it last forever if she saw it….

But she was looking at her computer again and ignoring him. It seemed he had taken too long. Tsukiyama cleared his throat. “What is my place in goat… and subsequently, the question of mine and kaneki’s bond. I feel there are newcomers who already hold more sway with him.” He hoped Chie was listening. He hoped she could hear the trgic notes he was playing right now. “Who is more suited to be Kaneki’s blde, between me and Jaggy-kun?”

He hoped Chie was listening. He hoped she could hear the tragic notes he was playing right now. “Who is more suited to be Kaneki’s blade, between me and Jaggy-kun?”

Chie answered him almost immediately. “To summarize. Even though Jaggy-kun hasn’t been her long, he’s already pretty trusted. Meanwhile, Tsukiyama has been pretending to be important since you went to the sixth ward. I’d say, Jaggy-kun had you beat from the start.”

Tsukiyama stared forward with the exact same shocked expression he had back when Fuka called him a mere wallet.

Chie raised her camera and immediately took a picture. Tsukiyama’s eyes stayed frozen, stunned and looking somewhere else. “A stupid face like that, that’s exactly the moment I needed to capture.”

He supposed it was foolish of him to expect pity from Chie. If she had been a kind person, all that time ago, he would have simply lost interest in her and ate her. She was a pet, who just like any other human managed to give him a range of infinite new reactions and possibilities, simply from his interaction with her.

Tsukiyama decided for once, that the best topic to talk about was something other than himself. He kicked his leg down from where it had been crossed over his knee, and scooted on his chair even closer to Chie. He was being obnoxious without even realizing it, as his stool made a large squeaking sound as he dragged it across the floor.

He leaned over her shoulder to see what she was working on. Chie moved herself to the left so that her head would block his view. When he tried to look over her opposite shoulder instead, Chie moved her head to the right.

“Hmm, what are you doing exactly.”

“Maintenance of our firewalls. If they were to come at us seriously we would be screwed. It feels mostly like busywork.”

“You should have more faith in your work.” Shuu reached out and tried to place a hand on her shoulder, only for her to suddenly duck forward to avoid it. As his hand grasped at the empty air, it just now occurred to Tsukiyama that Chie might be avoiding him. 

“Belief and feelings have no place in reality.”

“Huh?”

 “It’s realism. You know like the photoes I take. If I were more of an artist, I guess I could dress it up, but I can’t… not really.” Chie was trying to put it into terms he could understand, Tsukiyama realized.

 “Chie, you know. You’re a human, you don’t have to push yourself so hard working for ghouls.” The rhythmic typing that had been a constant in the background their entire conversation had stopped suddenly.

Chie finally turned her head around and looked directly at him. Her eyes looked tired. Even so, she smiled. It was a very unchie-like expression. “I already told you didn’t I, I want to live a life I don’t regret. Goat is the most interesting place to be, I feel like if I stay here, it’ll be interesting right until the end.”

Tsukiyama pushed one finger to his chin. It nearly touched his lips. “Are you sure about that, don’t you have a family to go back to Chie?”

“Don’t you?” Chie parroted his question. She seemed to realize even that question was a bit too cruel, and softened her expression, turning back towards her computer. “Besides for me you are…”

Chie paused.

Tsukiyama did not seem to notice she was leading into something, as he immediately sprung up.

“Wait a moment, Kaneki left me in charge of all of the ghoul forces for the upcoming clown operation. Fuka won’t even be serving as his personal guard then, with Take as his right hand, and I as his left hand, I really will be his sword!”

Chie felt her tongue brush up against the bottom of her lip, as the words in her mouth suddenly paused. She decided, then, it was better to swallow them. “You know, Kaneki probably isn’t the sort of person who displays his affection in regular ways. A person like you who barely understands regular people shouldn’t assume he could read him.”  
  
Tsukiyama tilted his head.

Chie continued to stare forward. “It’s nothing in particular, just a feeling that I had. Kaneki probably wasn’t raised in a household where he was shown a normal amount of love. In fact he’s more like-”

The name she said next made Tsukiyama shiver.

♔

 

The two part clown raid attack, with Tsukiyama Shuu in charge of the ghoul counterpart meant to back up the clowns, and Kaneki leading humans and half humans through the labs for a hit and run movement, went out without a hitch.

Tsukiyama sent Nishiki to retrieve Itori, Naki and the white suits for Nico, and then he went himself to speak with the friendly Dona-chan. Itori and Nico accepted their invitations easily enough. Nishiki told him that Itori was even complaining that she would likely have to go get her troublesome little sister sooner or later in response to his capturing of Roma.

Donato was the only outlier.

“Show’s over then? Well, I wasn’t going to stick around with Furuta much longer anyway.”

“Where are you going, then? The whole of Tokyo will be at war you know. Are you off to see an old friend?”

The old man turned his head away. He hesitated for a moment. “No… Nothing that sentimental.”

Then he simply shrugged and walked off. Tsukiyama sighed in disappointment for a moment. For a clown, he was expecting something much more dramatic. Then again, perhaps his show was played out. He looked back to see what Donato had left behind.

There was a screaming boy there, covered in in kagune secretions that seemed to be eating his whole body. Donato had been holding two heads in his hand when he walked off. Tsukiyama watched on for a moment longer, looking at the boy cry and wail in front of the headless corpses.

People he had failed to save?

He had watched for a moment too long, though, and saw out of the corner of his eye a girl in blue come to confront the wailing boy. He remembered now. These were the children that were always following Kaneki around.

Once upon a time, they had been such a tight knit group. Apparently they were torn apart.

Was it because of me? Tsukiyama thought, as he hurriedly jumped away, hoping he had not been seen.

It was not until a while after the raid Tsukiyama realized why he had lingered so long. The shape of the screaming boy, it was a familiar one, it brought back memories of the Kaneki of old. The one he knew best, much better than this current one.

This new Kaneki, his King, had appeared on a rooftop as all the groups reconverged at the rendezvous point. In his arms, he was carrying a figure draped in a white cloak. When Tsukiyama moved closer to report what had happened, he saw a head of pink peek out from underneath the cloak she was wrapped in.

Tsukiyama looked to the side to see that Take Hirako no longer had a jacket. Behind him, there were rows of… children? Filed up in lines. The figure in the cloak seemed to be sleeping. Tsukiyama noticed a nasty looking wound on her neck, covered in stitches, though both the skin around the wound and the stitches themselves seemed to be rotting. He wondered how she was even alive at all. He could hear her breathing, though, and as he listened he even heard her mutter something in her sleep.

“Arima-san,” the dreamy way she said those words, she seemed happy enough. 

“My king, we’ve recovered all of the priority targets except one.”

Kaneki, missing the top part of his mask, looked at Tsukiyama with both eyes, one red and one colorless. It was still strange to see him without the eyepatch.

“Which one?” He raised his eyebrows in concerned.

“Donato. He was polite about it, but he refused, I’m sorry, my king.”

Kaneki’s eyebrows knitted, a pensive look. “There’s no need to apologize. Truth be told, I would have rather you didn’t risk yourself in trying to force him to cooperate with us. Thank you, Tsukiyama.”

Tsukiyama gave a slight smile. Kaneki was glad he had come back safe. He’d done a good job.

Suddenly, the sleeping girl ruined the moment by snoring, and then in her sleep, spitting some of her drool in Kaneki’s face.

“Tsukiyama, can you-??”

“Of course my king. Let me take care of the sleeping princess for you.”

If Tsukiyama had known at the time, that this was Ihei Hairu, the woman who had butchered Yuma and sliced Mairo in half, he might not have been so eager to carry her the rest of the way home.

♔

“With the addition of the clowns, and the Oggai you retrieved from the lab, our forces have nearly doubled. There’s also one more former investigator you went out of your way to recruit. I assume he could feed himself, but our scavenging routes will no longer be sufficient to feed the rest.” Nishiki said, reading the report from Banjou’s scavenging team. 

Until this point, they had been eating sparingly with the scavenging routes in the suicide woods that :re Cafe and the manager provided for them, so as not to draw attention in the same way Rose had.

Present at the meeting was Kaneki, Nishiki, Take, Uta (who, Tsukiyama was glad to see, had survived after all), Miss Manager, who was serving them all coffee, Yomo behind her, and himself.

“Another CCG agent, besides Mr. Owl and sleeping beauty? Who did you recruit this time, King, one of those children that was always following you around?”

The image of that boy screaming had not left his mind.  
  
“Huh…” Kaneki clearly hesitated for a second. “Uh, no. It’s… well you see... It might be a little bit awkward to explain, but I invited him to this meeting so he should show up soon enough.”

Tsukiyama chuckled. Even as this strong and decisive king, apparently he could not keep the act up all the time.

As he saw who walked through the door, though, he suddenly stopped laughing. Koori Ui, the man who had led the Tsukiyama Extermination Operation. Without even thinking, Tsukiyama rushed forwards, bringing out his kagune.

Koori looked so much different from when he had last seen him. His eyes were tired and dull.  They looked sunken in, the lids had grown almost black. The only other person he saw with such severe looking eyes was Monsieur Naki, and even Ui’s were a bit more crooked looking.

His drab eyes though did little to slow down his movements, as he immediately blocked Tsukiyama’s kagune with his spear, Taruhi. Once again the two of them were close enough to look each other in the eye.

“I believe we left things unfinished on that island.”

“I should have known you ghouls wouldn’t know how to be polite.”

The two of them held each other in a stalemate for a moment. It was broken when he heard a feminine voice from behind Ui.

“Koori-senpai, what are you doing exactly? I don’t want to stand outside all day, I might be seen.”

Ui suddenly spun Taruhi around, and then using the difference in weight created by the sudden opening, kicked Tsukiyama back into the restaurant. Tsukiyama crashed into a table and knocked it over. In the background, he could hear Touka groaning.

The pink-haired princess was immediately standing over him. He recognized her from carrying her sleeping form all the way back after the raid.

“So that’s what the Tsukiyama kagune look like? Ahh, that's so disappointing! They would have made a great quinque.”

Ui appeared behind her a moment later. The fierceness of his eyes when he delivered that blow had disappeared and he looked at her softly and mumbled, “Don’t be rude… Ihei…” 

He reached out as if to touch her, only to have his hand miss by the sudden movement of Hairu, as she turned away to cross her arms and pout.

“I can’t believe you’re taking the ghoul’s side.”

“I’m not but… have a little consideration for the circumstances.”

Tsukiyama let the two person comedy duo play out in front of him for a few seconds as his brain rebooted from the shock.

“Ihei Hairu… the ghoul investigator that took Yuma, and Koori Ui, the one who brought the ruin of the Tsukiyama. Those were the two investigators you invited, Kaneki….”

“Huh, why are they calling him Kaneki?” Hairu piped up in the background with a finger on one of her cheeks.

“He has a lot of names.”

Kaneki had easily faded into the background. He looked away and did not respond to Tsukiyama’s question at all.

“On my pride as a Tsukiyama, I won’t stand for it.”

Tsukiyama stood up once more. Almost immediately, Ui raised his voice and pushed his arm violently out, and in front of Hairu, pushing her back. “Hairu, stand behind me!”

“Huh…”

“Now! That’s an order from your superior.”

“But we’re not…”

Tsukiyama’s kagune dissolved into a blood mist behind him, but his eyes were still shining a bright red. “She’s right, you’re among ghouls now.”

Whatever his emotionally taught mind was planning to do, before he could snap, another sound rang out through the cafe.

“Enough!!!”

Kaneki, who had timidly been watching the scene unfold, yelled loud enough that it seemed to shake the entire cafe. Tsukiyama only had one thought, as the color drained from his eyes. Kaneki’s voice sounded unmistakably like his papa’s just now.

“Tsukiyama, you had no problem when Take joined our ranks. I thought you were capable of holding your head higher than this.”

Tsukiyama shook. “...But the raid…”

“I participated in that raid as well, you know that. I thought it was water under the bridge.”

“You…”

“I’m your king, aren’t I?”

He was Kaneki’s sword. It was not right of the sword to question that hand that was wielding it.

“You’re right, I’ll do as ordered.”

“What about you Ui-senpai?” Kanekis eyes had turned just like Shuu’s and now Ui was the victim of that uneven glare.

Koori’s fingers tightened around his quinque. “Hairu, are you really okay with this?”

Behind him, Hairu nodded. “If what you told me is the truth, and Arima is on the side of ghouls, then I want to fight with him.”

Ui’s hair had fallen in front of his face. He muttered in a low voice, “That's right.”

Kaneki clapped his gloved hands together. “I'm happy then, lets try our best to get along.”

Nishiki who had been silently observing the entire time pushed up his glasses from the bridge of his nose. He muttered something like _we’ll see how long that lasts_ , before walking away clipboard still in hand.

Kaneki stared at the absconding Nishiki. He reached up and scratched at the fat part of his cheeks. “I'm sorry, I let us get off topic. Tsukiyama and Ui, can I brief you alone.”

Both nodded. Tsukiyama muttered my king, and Ui in a much quieter voice ‘Sasaki.’

“Touka, as for our other guest, can you pour her some coffee? I'm sure she's thirsty.”

Ihei Hairu stuck her tongue out. “Bleh, I hate coffee. Too bitter.”

Ui looked back to Hairu for a moment. “Be good…” He raised a hand as if he wanted to touch her in some way to say goodbye, but when his fingers shook, he simply left them floating there awkwardly in the air instead.

That human must be a shy gentleman, Tsukiyama thought.

Touka pulled out a chair for Hairu, and gestured obviously with her head for her to sit down. When Hairu didn’t get it at first she grunted in an impatient way, and Hairu hurried up. Touka had just finished filtering out a pot, and poured a fresh new cup of black coffee, just for Hairu.

“Awe, but coffee is the worst black.” Hairu said, as she kicked her legs from the stool she was sitting on.

 “You’ll get used to it,” Kirishima said, no sympathy in her voice as usual. Tsukiyama smiled as he followed Ui out silently.

Uta, who had been sitting at the edge of the Coffee shop this entire time next to Take, the both of them able to be equally as quiet for long amounts of time, finally broke the silence by turning to the person next to him.

“Aw, why did Kaneki have to go stop the fighting just as it was starting to get interesting?”

“You shouldn’t enjoy those sorts of things, No Face.”

“I have a name you know.”

“You shouldn’t enjoy those sorts of things, No Name.”

Uta’s pitch black eyes blinked. He could not tell, but it seemed like Take Hirako, the loyal underling of the always serious Arima Kishou had just made a joke.

From the back of the Cafe, a door opened and Yomo walked through. He glanced at where Uta and Take were sitting, but did not move towards them at all. Instead he nervously moved to stand behind Touka who was making light and basically meaningless conversation with the former ghoul investigator.

“Is Uta really going to keep hanging around T-t... Hirako-san?”

“Why? Are you jealous?”

Yomo let out a puff of air. He stared at his own feet. “Touka...  You don’t need another uncle yet. Stop thinking about such things. This is serious.”

He knew it himself. It was dangerous. He just then noticed the broken table. “Touka, what happened?” Yomo said, obviously sounding distressed.

“It’s your fault for letting all those ghouls into the cafe.”

 

♔

 

“Hairu looked cheered up at least. I was happy to see that,” Kaneki said. Once again, he spoke up awkwardly to break the silence between both Ui and Tsukiyama who were glaring at one another.

“She’s just being strong…” Ui said softly, a crack appearing in his hard gaze. Tsukiyama wanted to roll his eyes. Really, if he were a gentleman, he should try to be less obvious.

Nishiki cleared his throat and looked at his clipboard again. “Perhaps with a smaller group, we can actually get to what I wanted to talk about.” Nishiki looked over to both Tsukiyama and Ui. “Though, I doubt that.”

“I can take it from here, Senpai.” Kaneki offered Nishiki a weak smile. Nishiki only clicked his teeth in displeasure.

“We need a new food supply route," Kaneki continued. "If we starve, our fight will end right there. Tsukiyama, since you’re the best at tracking down quality food, and Ui-senpai, since you have a vested interest in finding human meat, the two of you, should get along to lead the new foraging squad.”

“Him!” Ui exclaimed.

“Moi!” Tsukiyama exclaimed, except more dramatically, with a hand on his chest. “King, I’m supposed to lead our attacking forces.”

“That’s in major operations, this is day to day activities. The Tsukiyamas organized feeding for themselves and hundreds of ghouls in their organization didn’t they? That’s why I wanted to trust you with this.” Tsukiyama, at the mention of his family name, loosened up just a little bit. Kaneki took this as the sign that he could continue. “From now on, day to day we’ll be splitting our forces. The zero squad will show up to defend ghouls from CCG activities, and the foraging squad will gather food. Ui-senpai.”

Ui looked up suddenly. To Tsukiyama, he looked equally disgusted with both tasks. “There’s something I have to tell you,” Kaneki said. He looked over to Nishiki.

“I’ve been going over the files that Kaneki stole during the lab raid. How much did Take tell you already?”

“He told me enough,” Ui said quickly in response.

“Right then, that’s specific. Whatever. Anyway, according to these studies, Kanou noticed a pattern of accelerated aging and weakening in all of his successful half ghoul experiments. Kaneki, gloves.”

Kaneki abided, and pulled off both of his gloves. One of his hands was perfectly healed, though the skin looked fresh, and there were veins apparent underneath the surface. The other looked like it was made purely from a ghoul’s kagune.

“Even a ghoul brought back by that surgery will probably experience quickened aging as a side effect due to the rapid cell division it would take to replace all the dying cells with living ones.” Nishiki tapped Kaneki’s head with a pen. “Notice his hair, and Hairu’s was a shade lighter than pink. The effects with her might have already started.”

Ui’s eyes froze. Tsukiyama was close enough that he could see that even though Koori Ui had no kakugan he had a vein bulging back there that looked about to burst. “What do you mean?”

“Madame Hairu’s hair is usually a shade like Sakura blossoms, but it’s become Salmon lately.” Tsukiyama offered, raising a hand in the air to gesture with.

“No, I know how colors work. But what does this mean? Even if I feed Hairu, is she going to die again?”

 Nishiki sighed. “Slow your roll just a little. She’s nothing like this idiot. She never uses her kagune, and she doesn’t ever need to heal. If you keep her out of combat, it should be mostly normal, but… well I can’t in good consciousness recommend this, but she might need to rely on cannibalism every once in awhile.”

Even though he was fighting on the side of ghouls now, in accordance to his teacher’s last wish, he was going to have to slaughter both ghouls and humans to protect the person he cared about. Tsukiyama thought the man next to him was much worse than a shy gentleman, he was a tragic knight.

Ui muttered some version of _that’s fine_ and looked away. Kaneki was following his gaze though. “Ui-senpai, how much of what Take told you did you tell Hairu?”

“...” Ui hesitated, “She thinks Arima is still alive.”

Kaneki scratched his face once more. “That’s going to be a troublesome lie to keep.”

“I’m sorry, but it was the only thing I could think of to get her out of her room.”

Tsukiyama once again found his thoughts wandering to the time when he could not leave his bedroom. Kanae had begged him to go so many times, he sometimes heard them in his sleep. But… the only thing that eventually moved him was a picture of Kaneki.

This poor knight, did he feel the same way?

“If Hairu’s happy with it, then it’s fine for now. Try to keep her away from the rest of the ghouls, they sometimes call me the Arima-killer you know? It’d be awkward if my former Kouhai came after me for revenge.” Kaneki tried to laugh to clear up the tension in the air, but it did not work.

Ui, separated from Hairu, was already beginning to look anxious. He turned around and muttered that he was done here, and walked out. Tsukiyama decided to follow him, for curiosity's sake.

“Did the coffee taste nice?” Ui said, approaching Hairu from behind.

She was still holding the coffee cup to her lips, and hummed. "Mmm, better than I thought.”

“This is why you should always listen to the manager,” Touka said with her hands on her hips. When neither of them seemed to notice her, she wandered away to the other side of the bar towards where Tsukiyama was.

 “You should share some then.” Ui quickly snatched the cup away and took a sip for himself. He could taste the lipstick Hairu had been wearing a moment ago. He should have been more careful about where he drank on the cup, he chided himself.

“Koori-senpai, now you’re the rude one,” She tried to snatch it back from him. By mistake, Ui reached out only to swat her hands away, but pressed on her head instead, gently, to keep her from reaching him.  

Hairu let out a strange noise. Then, immediately looked away from Ui. “Fine, keep it, I don’t care.”

"Miss Ihei, can I ask you something?” Tsukiyama called from across the bar. When Ihei raised her head at him, he continued. “Matsumae, were you the one to kill her?”

 Touka looked like she wanted to elbow Tsukiyama right at that moment but nothing could dissuade him. “No, I don’t think so! In fact, I think she might have been the one to kill me, whoopsie.” Hairu knocked her fist against her head as if she were some simple ditz.

“Don’t talk about it like that, you’re not dead Hairu…” Ui said, his voice choking back emotion.

“Do you really think this is okay? Working with ghoul investigators?” Tsukiyama asked her in a quiet voice. Though, he doubted the comedy duo could hear him.

“Haise was a ghoul investigator you know. He was probably happier in that place, than he ever was in the world of ghouls.”

Tsukiyama bit his lip. “Even though he was killing ghouls?”

Touka had been wiping a cup down, but when Tsukiyama said that she put it away underneath the counter and leaned into the conversation. “Why are you asking that?”

“If Sasaki had come here, and participated in a :re raid... If you had survived, but on the way he killed Yomo then would you-”

Touka sighed, not bothered by his words at all. Really she was a remarkable woman keeping her composure all the time. Tsukiyama though, he, knew why his king often snuck glances at her. “You know I don’t have the answers to those questions, so why are you running your mouth in front of me?”

Ui Koori from across the bar piped up again. “If you’re referring to the ghoul Matsumae, I was there for the aftermath. The only one who survived her slaughter was Furuta Nimura.”

Tsukiyama’s eyes widened. Then, if there was somebody to ask for the answers, they were in the basement of this cafe.

 

♔

 

Furuta had been napping face down on the interrogation table. When Shuu suddenly slammed the door open and stormed in, he lifted his head. A snot bubble had grown from his nose, so quickly, he popped it then wiped his drool covered face off with the sleeve of his suit. For a gentleman like Tsukiyama it was a borderline horrific scene for him to witness.

“Are you here to kill me?” Furuta Nimura asked. He sounded almost excited.

Tsukiyama did consider it, for an extended moment. However he shook his head, loudly anouncing. “Nein! My king still has use for you.”

“If that’s the case, it’s good to see you again, MM-san.”

“I can’t say the same for you, Souta,” Tsukiyama said, with a dramatic folding of his arms.

“I wanted to say for a long time, I’m sorry for killing Matsumae, MM-san. I could mention it was self defense, but that might make my apology seem weak. I know you liked her though, which is why I’m glad you’re such a forgiving person.” Tsukiyama wondered if Furuta heard the ruckus that he caused upstairs. “Though, I suppose there’s no way my apology could hold a candle to your kind hearted king’s, am I right?”

Kaneki had not even apologized. Well, he had stopped him before he could even have the chance, so that was his fault, wasn't it? Water under the bridge. He needed to be like the surface of that still water, calm.

“What happened to Kanae and Matsumae. In fact, what were you planning to do with Hairu’s body after the raid? Why is she standing there, and Kanae isn’t?”

Furuta folded his gloved hands. They were red, just like the gloves Kaneki had been wearing. Pulled on so tight that Tsukiyama could see the indents where his nails were supposed to be. “That’s so many questions, ugh. I feel like you guys only ever want to come down here to get information out of me.”

“You’re a captive being held for interrogation.”

Furuta groaned again. “Yeah, so what? There’s no situation in life that you can’t make fun with some laughter. You should know that, MM.”

Tsukiyama, who had been standing with his hands on the table, pulled up a chair and sat down on the opposite end. He leaned in closer to the conversation with Furuta. Perhaps this tangent would give him some of the answers he sought. “What should I know?”

Furuta threw his hands up in the air. Apparently he had said something ridiculous. “Come on! Aren’t you the one always going on about the beauty in the world? Flavor? Spice? Art! You think so much like a clown would, back in the gourmet club days I was almost tempted to invite you.”

Tsukiyama remembered. Souta had approached him a couple of times. The only time he said something significant though is when he made the suggestion to find a ghoul named Rize Kamishiro, who was just as voracious an eater as Tsukiyama. At the time, Tsukiyama had not wondered why Souta could not simply ask her himself.

“Yet, you didn’t.”

Furuta snapped his fingers and then aimed a finger gun straight at Tsukiyama’s chest. “Pchoo! Right, now you’re starting to follow along. You’re so much like a clown, but there’s one quality that disqualifies you from being able to hang with us.”

Tsukiyama’s hand had found its way to his chin. “I know already, it’s my loyalty.”

Furuta shook his head. “So close, so close. It’s because you grew up in a household surrounded by love. You had too many reasons to be attached to this world.”

Tsukiyama’s eyes widened.

“At least you did, what a shame to let all of those things go to waste.”

He stood up at once and kicked the table away. In the next stroke, his kagune slammed into the wall right next to Furuta’s head. The blade edge an inch away from his face.

“Oh boo, you missed,” Furuta whined, but he was otherwise unperturbed.

Touka kicked the door open. Tsukiyama heard her footsteps down the stairs and knew this was yet another outburst that was going to cause trouble for his kind, two in the same day. In front of him though, Furuta immediately kicked his chair out from under him and fell forward.

“The hell happened?”

Just as Touka arrived, Furuta stood up again rubbing his behind. “It’s nothing, I just fell. I’m a terrible klutz.” He was standing, right in front of the hole in the wall that Tsukiyama had left. Touka clicked her tongue, but otherwise closed the door and went back upstairs.

“That’s two tables in one day…” She muttered, and that was the last Tsukiyama heard of her.

Tsukiyama looked back to Furuta for a moment. That was… it must have been nothing. Part of his insincere apology. He would not be fooled by it.

Tsukiyama too, began to walk away. He knew there was nothing left of value to be learned from Furuta Nimura today.

On his way out though, Furuta called after him. “Hey, don’t walk with such a sad sack face. At least there’s a silver lining this time.”

Tsukiyama stopped and turned back for a moment, and instantly regretted it. “You missed Kaneki didn’t you, MM-san?”

He managed to keep his face under control. All the way until the other side of the door. Still in that dark basement, but at least separated from Furuta, Tsukiyama nearly collapsed against the wall.

His hands traveled to his face to try to stop them, but the tears already had begun to flow. “I’m so sorry, Karren.” Tsukiyama took a desperate, gasping breath. “The person you gave up your life to save is so selfish.”  
  
  
  



	5. V

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Furuta Nimura has enough personality for a one man show.

_“Why… are you?”_

 Interesting choice of last words.

 Ghouls had enhanced senses, though until he cut out a ghoul’s organs and had them sewn up into his own body, he had never experienced them himself. So he did not know for sure, standing on that rooftop if she was able to see him or not.

 If she had though, hypothetically, that would mean from several stories away, and behind a mask she could still recognize him in an instant. The thought was chilling, how exactly would she have done that? It had been so long. He was so sure, she had forgotten entirely about him, about what he did. She certainly acted like it.

 Perhaps it was just the sound of his laughter she remembered. Kanou told him once that sounds and smells were especially good at triggering emotional memories.

 If she had recognized him though, what did she think? It was not guilt that kept him awake at night, no he was far beyond that point of feeling that. Just a simple question. The kind any pining soul would ask, “Did she think of me at all?”

 Rize Kamishiro loved books just as much as he did. Perhaps she thought it was the perfect book end, the boy who had given her her freedom, finally grew into the man, the Washuu come to take it away again.

 “Why indeed,” Furuta Nimura remarked flippantly to himself as he walked along under the tunnel. Perhaps because he was so absorbed in thought, he did not hear the cracking of the foundation, as Kagune bore into it. Perhaps it was the cicadas too. He could hear them chirping in the background.

 Children often collected the shed skins of cicadas to show to others. He had heard about it, but never experienced it himself. The garden had flowers, but it was rare for any other life to make it down there. When he was young, he had seen a butterfly once, from afar but Arima Kishou snuffed it out.

 “Aaaaah, cicadas. Hmmm?” He was having a happy walk, reminiscing, then a certain baby face just had to show up.

 “Good evening, ‘former furuta’.”

 Hair pure white, but dressed in dark black. There was no eyepatch to cover his face, so Furuta caught his half and half stare. His nephew Matsuri was right, his smile was creepy.

 “Associate special class? Here to kill me?” Furuta smiled back.

It was a joke. (Laugh). He knew Kaneki Ken could never raise his blade against another human being. He had hinged all of his plans on that one immutable fact.

 One tedious conversation later. He was sure of that. Talking with the Washuu, really? Did he plan to ask nicely, the ghouls that had been raping and taking what they wanted for hundreds of years to simply back down. It had taken everything he had not to break down laughing. Actually, he did break down laughing, his bad. Still, as boring and typical as Kaneki Ken was he considered the conversation worth it. A good storyteller needed to establish foreshadowing, right?

 Furuta rubbed his red gloved hands together. They made an eerie sound, like the sensation of rubbing your nails against velvet. “I’ll be having Rize bear me a buuuuuuunch of kids. 101 dalmatians style.”

 Once again his thoughts went back to Rize. A crooked smile appeared on his face. He wondered if Kaneki would be able to guess it, such an obvious hint. His beloved Oggai, the procedure must have been finishing up right now. They would be safe floating in their tanks for awhile, just like Rize was.

 He turned around swiftly then, his hands still held together, the tails of his coat flapping behind him. As he walked away, try as he might he could not stop the chuckles from escaping his lips. “They’ll make their debut one day, do me a favor and play with them. Ufufufu.” A bad habit of a clown, they always had to have the last laugh.

 “King, are you sure you don’t want to go after him?”

 Furuta heard it in the distance. The senses of a ghoul were something amazing after all. Yeah, right, was all he thought. Then those same senses, detected a rumbling above him. He raised his head a second too late. To see a rock falling down on top of him.

  _Oh._

_So that’s what you thought when you saw the steel beams falling._

_I’m about to get crushed._

_In retrospect, that was a stupid thing to be wondering about all this time._

 He blacked out for only a moment. He was not thankful for ghoul abilities this time, but rather garden training. _If you lose consciousness after a blow to the head like that, you’re worthless to us, Nimura._

_I’m worthless to you regardless, he said at the time. He talked back. They didn’t like that. Arima, especially didn’t like that._

_Did nobody teach you manners in the garden?_

_Kaiko had said that._

_It's not that he was never taught. No, not that._

 Furuta cracked open one eye. His body was jammed at some comedic looking angle, between a rock and a hard place. He could move two of his fingers just barely, and his eyeball. Worst of all, the blood that was leaking from his head, had mixed in with his hair, and caused his parted floppy bangs to stick onto the side of his face. His trademark hairstyle was totally ruined! He was sure a few of his teeth had been knocked out when he hit the ground too.

 He would have to ruin his suit too. Furuta thought as the discs in his back began to crack. Oh my, oh my, he was becoming less handsome by the minute. From the point underneath his lower back, a red liquid began to emerge. It solidified into a crimson tentacle, that tore through the rubble that had rested on top of him. Kagune, just like Rize’s. As Furuta stood up once more, he petted it again, a tentacle that was nearest to him. He felt something sharp and removed his gloved hands. Teeth.

 Furuta looked ahead to see Kaneki walking towards him, his kagune receding from the walls he had buried it in.

 “My, my, my! My precious baby of a boss is starting to grow up.” Furuta said as he staggered forward. Only the force his kagune was exerting was keeping him standing. He clapped his hands together, and shook his hair out of his face so Kaneki could see his eyes. One black one white, just like his, but backwards, like he was looking into a mirror. “You should be careful, once you grow up, you’ll no longer be cute! I’ll be forced to take you seriously.”

 His kagune rushed forward towards Kaneki’s. The battle of two kings, one to decide the fate of the world! And then.. Um…

 What happened next? He forgot. Things had gone off far from his script. Perhaps he wasn’t cut out to be an author like Takatsuki Sen after all. Then what did that make him?

 

♔

 

When Furuta Nimura next regained consciousness, it was slower. It started with the ringing of his ears. The ringing became more distinct. He recognized it as laughter. The laughter of children playing in a far off place.

 Unlike dear little Hairu, or sweet Kishou, he had no wish to linger in that place. Furuta forced his eyes open, his first sight being the desk his face was pressed against. Head. His head was down. He had to raise his head. His back cracked again with the effort. His head up, his shoulders began to rise and fall with his elevated breathing. He was tired, but with his head up he could look around and assess his situation.

 He tried to move his hands, they were held back behind the chair, and handcuffed. In front of him there was a table, and the only reason he could see was a source of light in the room hanging from the ceiling. It looked like the CCG interrogation room they kept Shiono in.

There was no one else in the room. Furuta realized, that besides his aching body, there was one other critical affliction he was suffering from right now. He was bored. To pass the time he did what he always did, what he had been doing since he was a child. Running the scenarios in his head, over and over.

 He had thought his Kagune would be enough to counter Kaneki’s. It was enough for the one eyed owl, had he grown so strong? No, it was the opposite. Every time Furuta used his kagune in a great burst like that, he could feel himself aging.

 Kaneki’s hair was pure white too though, he should have been suffering from the same effects. Then what had led to his loss. What was different in this fight then the one against owl. Furuta thought carefully and realized that last time, he had run. He had not actually tried to stand his ground and fight. Perhaps it was because he got hit in the head, that he thought it was a good idea to fight the king directly. He was still innocent eyed Furuta Nimura rank two, he could have fled from the renegade Haise Sasaki into some CCG officers, and pointed his finger in fear at him. Backup would have guaranteed his survival, and further stained the name of Haise Sasaki like he was trying to do already.

Furuta’s eyes narrowed. Yes, that would have been the best approach so then why… His train of thought was interrupted by the creak of a door opening. A single beam of light fell into the basement and onto Furuta’s face.

 “You left me alive? How disappointing.” Furuta said, finally scowling in front of his former partner.

 “I’m not being kind.” Kaneki said in an even voice as he pulled up a chair on the opposite side of the table. He slid into it, then sat down while touching his chin, resting it upon his hand. “You were just more useful to me alive, then dead.”

 Furuta’s handcuffs clinked behind his back. He had been fidgeting in them this entire time. Now, he popped one elbow, and then the other, and brought his hands up in a perfect arc over his head and in front of his body. Furuta pulled his hands apart and let the handcuffs fall into the table. “Somehow, I doubt that.”

Furuta stood to stretch his back out like a cat. He needed to get out all the kinks, and then, he grabbed his elbow and with a forceful motion popped it back, the same with the other one. Kaneki had raised to his feet, peeling off his glove. Furuta suddenly thrust a red gloved hand in his face.

 “There’s no need! That was merely a demonstration. Handcuffs, even the kind the CCG employs won’t work for a crafty ghoul. You’ll need a straight jacket, and one tight enough to cut off the circulation, otherwise they might dislocate more joints in order to get enough room to draw their kagune out.” Furuta punctuated his lecture by sitting back down. “Either way, I guess I lost, Kaneki.”

 Kaneki continued to stare at him while standing up. His expression was unchanged. “Being the loser didn’t stop you from lecturing me.”

 Furuta tapped at his forehead with his index finger. “While we’re on that topic, the topic being your shortcomings, I wonder if you’re this poor at keeping prisoners how you’ve managed to keep Roma in your base for so long.”

 “She’s not stronger than Nishiki, and Kurona. She must know that even if she tries to escape she’ll be faced with them again.”

 Furuta stopped tapping at his head. He didn’t know? He must not have bothered to look. Kaneki Ken was finally beginning to learn, but he was a slow learner. “If you decide not to kill someone, then the burden of their life becomes yours. If that’s the kind of half assed mercy you’re offering, then I have no interest of being any use to you.” He posed to look cooler for a second. “I refuse.”

 He still found himself in the middle of Kaneki’s empty, unchanging gaze. He was putting on quite a show, but Kaneki looked downright bored. “If your end goal was to kill the Washuu too, then why were you working against me?”

 “I just said, I refuse! I even posed! Aren’t you listening?”

 “What are you planning to accomplish with the clowns?”

 “Hey, I thought you wanted a conversation. It’s hard to have those if you’re not willing to listen.”

 Kaneki stopped. His arms crossd around his chest. The same chest rose and fall with the deep breath he was taking. “You’re not taking this seriously are you.”

 “I have yet to be given a reason to.” His response was quick.

 Kaneki’s was even quicker. He heard the sharp crack of a joint that was not his, as Kaneki broke his index finger over his knuckle. “I can give you one.”

 Furuta let his head sink low. He finally began to smile again. “Oooh, scary man. Are you going to torture me?”

 Kaneki’s eyes narrowed. He looked truly tempted to for a moment. Then he turned around entirely, denying Furuta the chance to get a look at his face. Kaneki politely covered his mouth as he yawned. “You’re not worth that kind of effort.”

 “So I was right, what a lazy king you are.”

 Kaneki Ken nodded his head without looking back. “Yep, you’re right. For a helpless person like myself, it’s better to rely on others.” He stuffed his hands in his pocket, looking exactly like a child who did not receive what he wanted and began to walk away.

 Furuta blinked. Wait. “Where are you going?”

 “To get some coffee, can you smell it all the way from down here? Touka’s coffee is the best.”

 Kaneki was a tedious presence but, Furuta knew if he was left alone here he would be bored. It would be boring. “If you don’t keep an eye on me, I’ll escape!”

 “No you won’t. Not when you let yourself be captured in the first place.”

 Furuta rocked back and forth in his chair. “Are you just going to leave me down here with no stimulation at all! That’s cruel!”

 “That’s the point, a ghoul becomes weaker and weaker as they starve, until the point at which they become insane. I want to see how long you can last.”

Before Furuta could get another word in, the door was slammed shut behind Kaneki.

 “Well then,” Furuta said to an empty room. Obviously, there was no response.

 

♔

 

Boredom, just like grief came in several stages. Furuta had been observing the room for a long time, and had come up with just about every detail he could in this enclosed space. The only thing he did not yet know was how long he had been unconscious, and after that how long he had been awake in this room.

 His head fell forward and crashed on the table. “I hope it’s not sunday already. I want to read gintaammmaaaaa.” He moaned against the table. He did not know what the exact progression through the stages of boredom were, ut he assume dhe had just reached the stage where he began talking to himself.

Furuta stood up suddenly, letting the chair fall out from underneath him with his dramatic motion. “Wait! I know where this is, this has to be the Re: Cafe that Sasaki once took me to visit when we were partners. He was too nervous to walk in, he just watched from the opposite side of the street. He must have been intimidated by the beauty of the cafe manager, wait that part doesn’t matter.”

Furuta slammed his hand against the table. “What does matter is he’s made a fatal mistake. I know exactly what’s around the corner from this cafe. I could escape out that unlocked door, walk outside, go to the corner store, buy shonen jump, then walk back before they’d noticed i was gone.”

 Furuta sat back down. Except his chair was away, so he just fell on the floor. He reached towards his shoes and slid one of them off. He wriggled his sock out of the bindings of his pants, and then pulled it off his foot. He placed it onto his hand, and then as he made the sock talk began to mock Kaneki’s voice.

“But wait! If you left all on your own that’d be the same thing as admitting you lost to me.”

 Furuta looked at his own puppet, Sasocky Haise. “I can’t help it, you’re just too cruel. Even Arima gave books to read to poor little 240-chan when he was trapped in the Cochlea. I thought you were supposed to be standing in his shoes.”

 The sock paused for a moment. Then opened its mouth again. “Arima is dead you know. He can’t teach me anything more, but you can. It would be more fun than starving to death in this hole at least.”

 “Aaaaaaah! But I don’t waaanaaaa! Do something yourself for once!” Furuta whined again, and stopped suddenly when he heard a ruckus breaking out upstairs.

 He could not make out the words at all, which was disappointing. He could pick up there were two voices arguing though. One was definitely Kaneki Ken’s, and the other was a female voice.

 Girl! There was a girl here! No, he needed to focus.

 Furuta quickly pulled off his second sock. Now he had two puppets. “If it isn’t Missus Sa-socky! Hey, tell me why you’re so angry at the mister.”

 The sock immediately began to flap its gums. “You should see this guy! Ever since he declared himself the one eyed king he thinks he’s such a big shot. He’s going around killing ghoul investigators.”

 Furuta hummed. “Hmmm, Ms. You know, he might be doing that to protect you.”

 Sa-socky piped up, “Yeah, tell her! This is all for their sake, I have to create a world where ghouls can live safely for them.”

The missus grew incensed. “That’s exactly what you said last time, and look where it landed you! In the cochlea! You weren’t able to protect anyone! That all happened because you picked a fight with the doves without anybody asking you too.”

 Furuta was about to raise his mouth, when the other sock spoke first. “What was I supposed to do then, nothing! That’s what Yoshimura did. That’s why Anteiku fell. Do you want another raid to come here just like last time?”

 Furuta shook his head. “You guys aren’t listening to me at all. Neither one of you has changed since Anteiku, you’re never going to agree. You should just kiss and make up already.”

 “Sas-socky.”

“Misses Coffee Manager.”

 The socks suddenly lurched at one another and began to kiss. 

 At that moment, Furuta heard somebody clearing her throat. He looked up. Girl! There was a girl here now!

 Touka Kirishima looked down at the socks on his hands. “What are you doing?”

 “Making them kiss…” Furuta answered

 “Where did you find polka dot socks down here.”

 “I was wearing them when I came in,” Furuta answered again, with more cheer.

 “Weirdo.”

 In all fairness, Furuta had torn his jacket off awhile ago in frustration. He was sitting there, suspenders half off, his shirt half unbuttoned, and barefoot.

 “You look like a mess.” She added, gesturing to all of him.

 “Finally, my outside appearance matches how I feel inside.” She thought he was weird! Furuta fell back on the ground dejected. There went all of his chances. Just when he had thought he hit his lowest point his stomach began to rumble.

 Touka knelt in front of him to reach eye level. “Do you want some food?”

 “What are you going to offer me? Human flesh? Just so I can become a disgusting cannibal like you?”

 Touka stood up, flipping her hair. Huh, she had the same hairstyle as him. Copycat. She put her hands on her hips. “Die then.”

 Just as ruthless as Kaneki, Furuta thought. No wonder they made a good match. He hated seeing the only other person in the room go, but it was at least fun to watch her leave. She paused  right before she hit the steps.

 “You know, Kaneki said something similar to me once. A long time ago.” The door shut behind her.

 Furuta was alone again.

 

♔

 There were 86,400 seconds in a day.

Once Furuta’s count reached that high, then he knew a day had passed for sure. When he fell asleep, he just assumed more or less another day had passed and marked it as so. He counted thirteen markings on the wall.

Two weeks, once he reached three a human would starve to death. He assumed a ghoul could go even less. When he was working with the CCG and not moonlighting as Souta, he needed to eat as little as possible so as to not raise any alarms with V.

 He let his head fall against the table again. His stomach had started rumbling again and hour ago, and refused to stop this time. He raised his voice louder than it. “It’s been soooo loooong….”

 “I’m going to be so behind on paperwork when I get back.” Furuta said. Oh, to clarify, it was not Furuta himself that was speaking, but rather Furuta.

 No wait.

 The one held prisoner in the basement, he was Former-Furuta. The one who just spoke up next to him, dressed in a long black coat it was Rank 1 Furuta, Kijima’s assistant. “Kijima’s going to be nervous if I don’t get back soon! Who knows how many ghouls he’ll carve up trying to look for me.”

 Former-Furuta raised his head. “You know Kijima is dead right? He never cared about us anyway, I doubt about anyone, he was just looking for an excuse to be sadistic.”

 Rank 1 grabbed his face and started to wail. “Kiiiiiiijiiiiiimmmaaaaa!” The sound of sniffling though, quickly broke out into chuckles. “Maaaahahaha, that was why I liked him though. He was so much more honest than the rest of the CCG.”

 Former-Furuta looked away to see himself standing on the table. Well, he was sitting there but another version of himself was standing.

 “It’s rude to stand on tables you know,” he said drily.

 “It’s more dramatic this way, and Arima got to do it all the time. Anyway, you can’t give up here! I didn’t get to make my debut yet. We had so much material planned for me.” Standing there in all black, proudly like a buraeu chief should, there was Kichimura. “There’s got to be a way to turn this around still, come on let’s analyze what went wrong.” He pointed a finger at himself.

 Former-Furuta looked away. At the side of the room, leaning against a wall there was a lone clown. Him again, but the part in his hair had been changed, and curled. He wore a mask with a heart covering where his mole had been. Uta really did have a thing for moles. “I don’t think anything’s gone wrong. Right now we’re at the epicenter of the revolution aren’t we? If we just play along like we’ve always done, we’ll have front seats to the show.”

 Former-Furuta bit on his lip. He had a point, spoken like a true clown would. If he followed the path of redemption, and became a valued ally of Kaneki, he was sure he’d see plenty of interesting things.

 What exactly was it that was preventing him. He felt something grab his shoulders from behind. In a black suit, just like his own was standing V agent, Souta-Washuu. Snakelike, he hissed something into his own ears. “You know why you don’t want to go along with Kishou-san’s plans, it’s the same reason that you always talk back to Kaiko. It’s the same reason that from the start, you refused to let him become your savior, just like all the others.”

 Furuta nodded. That made the most sense. At least, as much as talking to the different personas he put on in front of others to help him reason his way through his current situation could make sense. Suddenly, the door opened breaking his concentration. The other Furuta’s vanished, he was no longer Former-Furuta, just Furuta.

 A man walked in. He had a monocle, and a top hat. He seemed to be wearing tap dancing shoes.

Charlie Chaplin!

 No wait, it was just another Furuta in a silly costume. Former-Furuta’s face quickly becameone of disgust. “Have I really gotten so bored that I’m inventing new personas already?”

 Just then, he heard a voice behind him speaking for real. The door really had opened, but the person who had walked in had not been himself but rather….

 “Are you talking to yourself down here?” Touka Kirishima asked him.

 Girl!

 Furuta peered back with one eye. The other eye was hidden behind his increasingly ragged hair part. “That’s a funny question. What even is a self? Can I have a self, when there’s no one else down here to see me.”

 “If you answer every question like a smart ass, then no wonder nobody wants to talk to you.”

Furuta chuckled. That was a good line, he’ll give her that.

  _Everybody is raised from a child completely dependent on their parents, to somebody with a self identity._

_My father does not even know my name. I was never raised. The only thing I was taught to do was lie, so what’s left for me?_

  _What am I when there’s nobody to lie to?_

 If he was entirely dependent on others, then logically, he would still be a…

 “You should drink this before you die.” Touka slid the coffee in front of him.

 Furuta breathed in the alluring aroma. It was tempting, she did not know how much. He had already decided though. He would die in this basement. 

Even if it meant there would be no one to miss him, and he would die just as quiet and insignificant as he was born. 

 Furuta felt a tug on his sleeve. He looked down. There was a child, wearing an all white onesie. This Furuta was the child named after a joke, a pun on the fact that he was born on a leap day. His mother must have had a sense of humor, as he could not imagine Tsuneyoshi coming up with that name.

 “Hey mister, what’s going to happen to Rize if you die here.” Furuta’s eyes widened to look at the child. “You left her alone with Kanou... Not just him, the rest of V is there too.”

 “Who let you out of your cage!” Furuta shouted at the child, tugging his arm back violently.

 There was no child though, there was only the manager. She looked at him, eyelids narrowing into slits, “I already told you, I was bringing you a drink.”

She had gone behind Kaneki’s back to do this. He wondered why, whether it was out of the goodness of her heart, or to spite Kaneki.

 “I tried to kill you at the cochlea, you know. I’m the one who turned the grinder on.” Furuta said in a low voice, refusing to make eye contact.

 “To be fair, if I had seen you back then I would have tried to kill you two. Ghouls don’t tend to hold grudges over silly things like attempted murder.” She nudged the coffee towards him.

 Furuta looked up at her. She was telling a joke. Aha. It was almost funny. “You’re really kind… miss manager.”

 If people could be kind to him of all people, that was a reason to live right? His hand reached for the coffee cup. He picked it up in his letting it rest in his palm and then brought his fingers around it from all sides to crush it. His fingers drew tighter and tighter, as the glass tore through his gloves and into his flesh, the coffee searing in his now open wounds.

Furuta opened his hand once again, and let the liquid and the remain pieces fall out of it.

 “Is that so, well you’re an idiot.”

 Furuta nodded. She was right after all.

 Then the coffee manager did something unexpected, she reached and tore his glove off of his hand. Furuta tried to struggle against her, but he was too weak. “You must be really hungry if you’re not healing by yourself, wait here.”

 Furuta had no choice, but to wait with a naked and bleeding hand. As she ran up the stairs and back down.

A girl was here again! She was bandaging his hand! Perhaps she’d give it a kiss to make it feel better. When she was finished, Furuta pulled the glove back onto his hand. She left without another word. Not even a ‘I wasn’t doing this for your sake, idiot!’

  


♔

 

The next day, he knew exactly why Kaneki had finally come to visit him. The clown raids would be tomorrow, just before Donato Porpora’s birthday. There was a fresh cup of coffee left again by Touka on his table before Kaneki had even shown up. When he did show up and see it, Kaneki kept glancing back at it his entire conversation.

 “Where did you get that coffee?” He finally asked.

 So it was to spite Kaneki then. Furuta thought that was a good enough reason. He picked it up and pressed it to his lips. Immediately, as it trickled down his throat like milk and honey, warmth began to spread throughout his entire body.

 He did not know if this applied to all garden children, but even back when he could eat food Furuta had difficulty tasting it. It all tasted like mush to him. He had never enjoyed food, only continued to eat for arbitrary reasons, like survival.

This perhaps could have been the first cup of coffee he drank in his whole life that he enjoyed. He could tell the manager had made it with care, now watching Sasaki’s face react was exactly the sweetener he needed on top.

 “The waitress brought it to me. I know your game though, you think I’m going to talk easier now just because I’ve been softened by the sight of a beautiful woman. You’re completely right.”

 Suddenly, there were pictures of all the clowns placed in front of him. Gosh, his friends were so ugly. He really needed to find a better crowd to hang around. “That’s a boring story. You should know the answer already. I have no interest in helping a lazy king!”

 They talked back and forth a bit, Furuta was not paying a lot of attention as he hated to repeat himself.

 “Those children you mentioned, all 100 of them. Could they be an extension of the Quinx projet? Is there a reason you arranged for Rize to be returned to you, and for the corpse of one of the Quinx children to be stolen.”

 Furuta raised his head. It seemed Sasaki had caught onto his hint after all. Perhaps he really could learn. He placed his gloved hands together, pressing finger pad to finger pad. Underneath one of the gloves, he could still feel the bandages that Touka left him.

  _Should I take this glove off and show you? I want to see your reaction._

 “Let me brag to you then, about all of my beautiful children. Do you think that makes me a good father? I wouldn’t know, I have no point of reference.”

He leaned in further to the conversation, finally interested. “Let’s make a deal, you can have all one hundred of them. In return, you have to snatch Rize away from Kanou’s hands. I don’t really want her, she’s too much trouble on her own, but I’d feel bad leaving her in the hands of old men like that.”

 Kaneki’s eyes twitched a little at the mention of Rize.

  _Still not over her, huh? Is that because Manager’s been so cold to you lately. When you were Haise, she became your Rize, didn’t she?_

 “That’s acceptable. I had a reason to go to the lab anyway.”

 “Rc suppressants right? Who told you that? Oh wait, don’t tell me. It’ll be more fun if it’s a surprise. Anyway, I needed Rize’s kagune to create the next generation of the Quinx. Kanou’s Q’s, but that’s a terrible name so I renamed them. It’s Oggai, now. That’s the death Kanji, cut in half and stapled together. If you were to read it literally, I suppose it would just say death death.”

 Kaneki crossed his arms. “And the point?”

 “An army of a hundred Kaneki Ken’s. They’d be just as effective at killing ghouls as you were. The losses I suffered in the clown raids, I was going to make up for them with the introduction of the Oggai. If you steal them away first, then Matsuri loses his secret weapon. In fact you can gain a secret weapon.”

 “You’re not suggesting I use children, do you?”

 “What do you call the zero squad?” Furuta shot back right away. Kaneki met his eyes, but only for a moment before averting them.

 I’ll think about it, was all Kaneki said to him. Furuta knew that Kaneki would take the bait though. It was exactly what he would have done in this situation. 

 

♔

 

Despite cooperating, Kaneki still gave him no food. The clown raids were a success, he could tell because Kaneki was smiling brilliantly rather than being his same mopey self. The conversations between them became more frequent.

He didn’t need food. As long as he had people to talk to. Manager would sometimes sneak downstairs and hand him coffee as well. Furuta wondered if she was putting something in the coffee to dull his hunger. His stomach had stopped rumbling so much.

 How rude, if she was going to spike his coffee she could at least use arsenic, he thought as he sipped the coffee alone in his room in the basement.

 Not only was Kaneki’s talks with him becoming more frequent, but other people had begun to barge in as well.

Furuta stood up suddenly and pulled his bangs back, so his hair looked much shorter. He tried to make the facial expression of what the human equivalent of a pear would look like. “Arima, it’s so tragic that you died. Now who's going to tell me what to do?”

 That’s right, Take who was always following in Sasaki’s shadow.

Furuta brushed his hair, changing the part so that it was much more even. Now he looked like a good handsome young man with a bowl cut. “Arima was such a pain in my ass. He couldn’t act like a human being at all. Maybe it’s a good thing that Arima died after all, than Hairu can look my way! Oh, Hairu! I tried killing for justice, but it wasn’t enough for me. Killing for love is much more fulfilling! I’ll become a murderer for your sake, who wouldn’t want a man like that!” As he made those pleas, he had put his hand on his chest.

 Now though, he dramatically pointed it forward. He changed his hair so that it swept to the side once more, but this time, it was stylish. “Cool! English! French! Spanish! Who cares about everybody else, I’m just a selfish egotist!”

 His round of impressions done, Furuta sat back down in his seat. “No wonder you surround yourself with all these people, Sasaki Haise. They all remind me so much of you.”

 That’s right, Sasaki had been sitting there the entire time, watching his one man performance. As usual, his eyes looked just about done. “Anyway, can we talk about the clowns again? I’ve gotten them all to agree to cooperate except for Roma.”

 Furuta’s jaw dropped. It was cartoonish. “Really! Of all people, Roma should have been the easiest to convince. What did you tell her?”

 “That I was going to create a world where humans and ghouls could live-”

 “Stop! Stop! Stop!” Furuta did not even let him finish. He immediately began to shake his head furiously. “You’re never going to convince an old broad that way, here, let me show you how it’s done.”

 For the first time, even though the option had been there all along. Furuta simply stood up, and then walked right out of the room. Kaneki had been so stunned that he let it happened. Quickly, he jumped to his feet and rushed after him to stop him.

 Furuta had already sprinted to reach Roma’s cell by that point though. He opened it, to see the girl on the ground tied up in a straight jacket. She was yelling at kagune worms around her to find somebody more useful than Nico.

 Furuta knelt in front of her. “Roma, what are you doing back here all this time? This isn’t anything like the Cochlea, the screams of the sufferng aren’t going to enertain you. I couldn’t even get any good reception on the romance drama that was playing out in the cafe above us.”

 “Hey, were you listening in on that?” Kaneki asked from behind, ineffectually.

 “Why should I listen to you? You didn’t send anybody to get little old me, Sou-chan.” Roma sniffled. “You hurty my feewings!”

Furuta pointed back at Kaneki. “I left you here because I thought you’d be happiest here. That man standing right there is Kaneki Ken, right?”

 Roma nodded. Kaneki also nodded.

 “Let’s cooperate with him then, you’ll get a front row seat to watch your favorite main character battle against tragedy once more. Isn’t that the reason you joined Anteiku in the first place?”

 Roma nodded. Immediately, she too began to pop out her joints again and again until a kagune piece came tearing out of her straight jacket.

“I told you so,” Furuta muttered as Roma sprung to her feet.

 Kaneki prepared for a fight, but suddenly, he was being hugged. “Kaneki, Kaneki, Kaneki! Can I please follow you just like Sou-chan said?”

 “Umm, sure…” Kaneki breathed. “Why not…”

 He supposed this madness should have been expected the moment he agreed to ally himself with the clowns.

 Furuta stood back. He waited until Roma was done to approach Kaneki himself. He put a single hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Have I proved myself cooperative enough yet? Are you going to let me out of that room?”

 “I really expected you to die down there.”

 That was true. He wanted to, too. Furuta just hated playing along to anybody’s scenario. Even his own. It’s why he would make a terrible author.

 “I know, I’m disappointed too.”

Kaneki put a hand over his mouth. He was genuinely thinking. “Hmmm, you can go to the upper part of the cafe. Only if there’s somebody to watch over you, though.”

 Before he knew it, Furuta Nimura had been dressed in a waiter’s outfit. He was standing behind a counter.

 Next to him was the person who assigned to watch him.

 Girl! He thought as he looked at her. It was the beautiful girl manager.

 Kaneki Ken was a kind person after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time, Touka has to train in two difficult employees.


	6. VI. Bloom for Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If Furuta keeps talking shit around Touka, he's going to get hit.

_Kaneki, Kaneki, Kaneki_

 A boy with dark hair, sitting alone, reading an unfamiliar book. Her one eye could barely make out the Kanji on the page. No, the entire sight seemed blurry. As if it had been cropped right out from the past and superimposed onto the present.

She was used to losing things, all ghouls were. When she heard Ayato, whimpering, waiting for her father to come back, and Touka had to be the one to reassure him, that was the moment she had accepted it. Things in this world would fall away and never come back.

 The sight of a lonely boy, quietly sitting with a book, and occasionally smiling at the pages in her cafe after hours was something that belonged only to her memory.

 Yet temptation was too strong. Her feet shook and remained rooted to where they were. Even though she knew better, she found herself turning against her will. Her hands, where were they? She had intertwined her fingers in some kind of nervous knot.

 “Um… excuse me…”

_Kaneki._

“...H-Hey!”

_Kaneki._

 “...?” 

The boy turned his head around. Two dark eyes, with a mole underneath them. An uneven part to his hair, the same as hers but in an opposite direction.

A dark haired boy reading alone at Kamii university, but not Kaneki. She wondered why she had even come to this place.  
  
“Yes?”  
  
The boy spoke up again, his voice bringing her out of her momentary shock. Her fingers grasped at empty air as she fumbled.

“Ah, uhm… W-where is the building with the… d-department of science?” She wanted to study biology. That was why she was here.

Slowly, the boy raised a finger and pointed. “It’s over there.”  
  
Touka bowed, a little too quickly. “T-thank you very much.”

As Touka walked away, she heard the boy muttering to himself. She couldn’t help it, ghouls had senses far beyond what humans were capable of.

“That was a high school student, right? She is pretty.”  
  
She heard, too, the binding crease and pages flapping as the boy opened the book once more to find the page he had lost. Touka might have heard it without ghoul senses though, it was such a silent sound. Heard only by her working late shifts alone in a cafe. That, the gentle way he turned each page, and how when he found a particular word he liked, he muttered it under his breath in a soft voice.  
  
It was just a word. It was stupid.

_“You can also read it as ‘usurai’. That sounds prettier, doesn’t it?”_

_Touka watched from the doorway where she stood leaning against it, observing Hinami and Kaneki’s smiling faces as they read together._

_A far off memory._

_The fact that you found words pretty, I thought it was stupid._

_That boy just now found me pretty._

_I wish it was you who said that._

_I’m stupid, too._

 

♔

 

Aokigahara was known as the suicide forest. Normally, :Re’s supply lines would not push them this far, but suddenly having to feed an entire army had forced them to expand. Well, as far as she understood it, it was Kaneki’s provisions squad that was now feeding the army. He had left them to the care and hiding of the refugee ghouls, that he had begun to pick up by the baseload.

The ghouls of Anteiku helped each other. That was what the manager had told her. Still, helping people was a lot of trouble. Kaneki had taken both of her hands, and asked this of her. It was the first time he had asked anything of her since coming back. When he held her hands, even though he was wearing gloves, she could feel his touch underneath them.

Which is more or less how she wound up in this forest with a creepy sounding name, standing boot deep in the forest’s muck as the rain had just let up. She heard the crunching of dead leaves behind her as the two people she was leading finally caught up.

Behind her, the coconut head gasped.

“That’s a dead body.”

Touka clicked her tongue. “What exactly did you think I brought you to the place called suicide woods for? To find beautiful flowers to pick?”

 A giggle emerged from behind her. It was not the humorless bowl cut, though she would have preferred it was.

Furuta had taken the opportunity to lean back against a tree, arms crossed. With his floppy haircut covering his face, the only thing she could make out of his expression was a smile. She turned away, just as the bowlcut spoke up again.

“Why… did you bring me out on this expedition?”

“I needed some security.”

“You’re the CCG’s SS-ranked rabbit aren’t you? I doubt you need security from me.”

Touka walked over to the corpse and knelt down in front of it. She reached forward, and without hesitation ripped one of its arms off. She bit into the raw flesh at the elbow. “Ah, it’s not rotten, good.” She muttered to herself. The rain had worried her on the way here. Her head turned back to address Ui, blood and meat still stuck in her teeth as she talked with her mouth open, “I’m not sure whether that’s a compliment or an insult but whichever it is, stuff it and just do what I ask.”

“Ah, okay.” Ui received the arm from her, and then just held it there not sure what to do with it.

“Yeah, Special Class. Lend her a hand,” Furuta said again in the background. His giggling got worse when Ui shot back a glare at him.

“Why did you bring him along, rabbit?”

“Kaneki asked me to babysit him.”

“The one eyed king, did?”

“We have names you know.”

Ui paused for a moment. His head fell, and his dumb haircut fell over his eyes. His fingers tightened over the arm he was holding. “This is hardly a socially acceptable time for introductions…” He fumbled, and she wondered why that mattered now. “I’m Koori Ui.”

“Kirishima Touka.”

“Nimura Furuta! Actually, it’s Nimura Souta Furuta-Washuu, you’re free to call me any-”

“Nobody asked you!” Touka quickly snapped at him. “You have too many names,” she muttered under her breath. Her eye looked back to Koori as she tried to ignore the intruder. “Do you know how much a ghoul eats in a month?”

“A standard ghoul will predate once a month. Binge eaters are known to do three or four times, so it’s commonly thought a ghoul only needs to eat one human corpse a month.”

Touka shook her head. “You’re thinking too much like an investigator, really. We’re not camels you know, we need to eat every day just like everybody else.”

She saw his eyes look away somewhere else, and knew who he must have been thinking of. She could understand him, even though she was a ghoul and he was a ghoul investigator. She understood why he was letting himself be lectured by a ghoul, and trying his best to hide his disgust while standing in front of the corpse of one of his own kind.

She thought he was stupid, but she understood him. “Hairu won’t like it, if you kill people to feed her. These people are already dead though, we can at least put their sacrifice to good use.”

Yomo had told her something similar the first time he took her out corpse collecting. At that time, he prayed before even touching the body. Guess she had forgotten to do that.

He only looked further away from her. For a moment she thought she failed to reach him. “I… I’ve already…”

“That’s a sentimental notion Miss Manager, but he’s already a murderer. I mean, technically, he has been for a long time being a ghoul investigator and all, but I’m guessing your bias here is towards human lives. In that case, he killed already at the clown raids.”

“The clowns are ghouls,” Touka protested.  
  
“They’re crafty ghouls you know, the kind that would sneak in panicking humans among the rioting clowns just to see if the ghoul investigators could distinguish between the two.”

“What kind of sick person would do that?”

“Well, if you don’t get the point, I guess you’re just as sick as I am.”

Touka heard herself start to growl. Before either of them seriously could get into it though, Ui raised his voice. “It doesn’t matter! What I’ve done the past, how we’ve changed…Hairu came back to me. That’s all that matters.” He reached forward and himself tore the other arm off the body. Now he was holding two of them. He threw them back to Furuta who between the three of them was carrying the backpack, before he began to work on the legs. “I want to see her again, every time I’m apart from her that’s all I think about. If you think this will ease her mind, make it easier for her to eat, then I’m grateful to you….”  
  
Koori finally picked up the Torso. He looked at her with an expression you probably did not want to see on somebody as they were holding a human carcass. “Miss Kirishima.”

“Calling me miss like that, you’re way too proper.” She slugged him on the shoulder. Ui cried out with a sharp ‘ow!’ and dropped the carcass. Touka sighed, and looked to where he had dropped it. Where the corpse had been sitting a moment ago, she noticed underneath it there had been flowers. From up above, the last of the rainclouds from this morning parted away and light finally shone on all three of them.

All this time she assumed it was a forest of the dead, but they were standing in a whole field of flowers. Before she could say anything, Ui already bent down. “I don’t know much about flower language, but these ones are pink just like her hair.”

Touka did not know much about flower symbolism either, or symbolism in general, when Tsukiyama tried to explain it to her she tuned him out, as prolonged conversations with him made the elevator music play in her head. “I’m sure she’ll like them.” Furuta was snickering in the background for some reason. Touka finally snapped, “Get on your knees and help him out!”

He didn’t react at all. He merely kept smiling. “Yes, Miss Manager,” he said in a servile way.

 

♔

 

“Welcome.”

“W-welcome.”

 “Your voice is too small. Welcome!” Touka reached out and hit Furuta on the back.

 “Wel-welgome!”

 “Don’t bite your tongue!” She put her hands back behind her own back, standing strong.

 Next to her, Furuta had his hands folded in his lap even as he was standing up. His head tilted, in the same direction as his hair was parted, and he only seemed able to nervously look at her at an angle. “Sorry… Miss Manager.”

 Really, he should know her name by now. She introduced herself to him, and then in front of him again. “How are you so bold when you want to get the last word in, but then you go back to being shy again?”

 Furuta scratched at his cheek, just underneath the mole under his eye. Touka often found herself staring at it, rather than his eyes, when she was forced to converse with him. “What can I say, I’m a complicated person.”

 “I think the answer’s simple, you’re just a smartass.” Touka said as she pointed straight at his nose.

 “Haha! She sees right through you, Sou-chan.” Roma giggled and pointed at him as well as she sat on the counter.

“Don’t sit on the counter, Roma.” Touka said as he walked by. She pointed to the tables instead. “Clean those up in the lull before lunch when nobody’s around.” Roma jumped off almost immediately and began to rush through her duties.

 “Do I count as nobody?” Uta said, peeking up from the stool he had been sitting on.

 Touka nearly jumped. He had been so quiet she forgot he was there. She nearly jumped a second time when she saw Take sitting next to him. He had been so quiet that… yeah.

 “You’re just another ghoul, lately this place is filled with nothing but Goat members. None of which actually pay their tab, I’m trying to run a business too, you know.”

Take muttered something about how he paid for himself under his breath.

 “Why did you set up this business then? I thought it was to wait for Kaneki, the same way the manager set up Anteiku to wait for his daughter.”

 Touka turned suddenly, her mouth falling open. “H-how did you know that?”

 “Hmm, I thought everybody did,” Furuta said with an innocent look on his face and a hand covering his mouth.

“I knew.” Uta popped up again.

 “Arima-san told me,” Take agreed quietly.

 “Uta told me,” Roma said from the back. It was followed by the sound of an ‘oopsie’ and her juggling one of the cups she tried to pick up between her hands.

 Renji walked out just then, wondering what was taking so long with the newest set of dishes. He was wearing an apron that was loosely tied behind his back, and under it a t-shirt that was too tight for his arms. The moment he stepped within range of her, Touka immediately kicked him in the shins.

“Ow! What?” He said, with a face that looked like a hurt puppy.

“You told Uta the manager’s secret, didn’t you? Then he told everyone!” Touka was trying to keep her voice calm, so at this moment she was being calm in a very loud way.

 “I didn’t! I didn’t even know about it until Kaneki told you and me.”

 Touka let out a puff of hot air. Just then she felt something slither behind her and wrap around her shoulder, and saw Furuta standing behind her again. “Hey, don’t worry too much about it. You’re probably the only one Kaneki told, you’re the king’s closest confidant after all. You should know a lot more than all of us combined.” Those words sounded like they were meant to reassure her but they didn’t at all.

 The moment was interrupted by the sound of shattering glasses. Roma looked at the broken pieces on the floor, tears in her eyes. She looked at Touka like Touka might yell at her, but Touka merely sighed. “I don’t get how such a strong ghoul is so clumsy.”

 “It’s probably because she’s a disaster. Just, personality wise, in general,” Uta said flatly without looking up from his coffee.

 “Perhaps senility is finally starting to set in,” Furuta volunteered.

 “...” Take said nothing.

 “Y’all are a bunch of meanies! Especially Take!” Roma said, stomping her foot on the ground, and also on the glasses she had broken, stomping them into tinier little pieces.

 Touka noticed there were tears running down her face. They were probably fake but still, she walked over and took a napkin from the table and dotted Roma’s eyes with it. “Clean up after yourself a little bit, really.”

 “Miss manager, if I cry next will you wipe up my tears, too?” Furuta asked. Touka yelled at him to get bent.

 A few minutes later with the shop mostly cleaned up again, barring a few more accidents from Roma, her two new employees were sitting together behind the counter. Touka sighed to herself once again, and she was sure it would not be the last one either. “Training in new employees is so tough.”  
  
“Technically, I’m the only newbie. Roma here’s an old timer.”

 Roma immediately elbowed Furuta in the gut. “You should really stop going out of your way to annoy Touka, it’s only going to end with you getting hit.”

 “That’s exactly why I’m trying so hard to annoy her. It’s a game between the two of us. If she resorts to physical violence then it’ll be admitting she’s lost.”

 Touka was right there, listening to those two idiots talk. Her fingers curled slowly into a fist, but she stayed herself.

 “I don’t get it! I think you’re just a masochist! Sou-chan’s a masochist!” She pointed at him again and broke into another round of laughter. Quickly she turned to Uta who was still sitting at the bar. “S! M! S! M! Which one are you Uta, S or M?”

“I don’t know, probably both.” Uta picked up his coffee to sip it.

 “Take!” She continued her chant, pointing to the ghoul investigator.

 Take was currently sipping his coffee through a straw. He didn’t answer. He only sipped a little bit louder.

 “I knew it!”  Roma said happily jumping up and down in place.

 Uta who had been sitting, with his feet on his stool, squatting there instead of sitting actually, like some kind of weirdo this whole time, finally stood up. Rather, he jumped off of the stool and landed on the ground, making Touka wonder if he was going to break anything. “I forgot, the reason I came here was because I finished those masks Kaneki ordered from me en masse.”

Furuta took off his apron, and only the proper dressing of his waiter clothing lied underneath. The ones he was wearing, were Kaneki’s old clothes. He was the same size almost exactly.  A little taller maybe, but skinnier at the waist.

 “I’ll help you find the master then,” Furuta said, with a polite arm at his waist and a small bow at his head before leading Uta out.

 On one hand, Touka did not trust either of them alone, especially alone together. On the other, she wanted a break from the oppressive air which seemed to surround Furuta. She leaned against the bar and watched Take and Yomo instead.

 “Yomo Renji,” Take said, acknowledging him as he walked up.

 “Hirako Take, is there something you wanted?” Yomo leaned against the bar Take was sitting at.

Take stared into his empty coffee cup. He figured he wasn’t going to find the answers in there. “What kind of person is Uta?” He asked, looking directly at Yomo as he did so without any hesitation.

“Uta is….. He’s… ummmm, urrrrggfff, uuuhhhhhggg, ummmmmm….” Yomo pressed the tips of his index fingers together nervously.

Roma suddenly next to him poked at his stomach. “I think he’s buffering!”

Touka realized Yomo was broken, and it would take him awhile to reboot. She rolled her eyes as she walked away and decided there was nothing more to see here. Furuta had left the back door slightly ajar, and she peered through it with one eye.

 “So what are you doing anyway, letting Arima’s dog follow you around?” As usual, Furuta cut straight to business.

 “I’m doing what I’ve always been doing, that’s a little pointless to ask,” Uta yawned.

 “The kind of people you follow around are Kaneki and Mutsuki, people with main character written all over their face. That guy is a side character at best.”

 Uta nodded. Furuta was not wrong. “His face is plain, but I wouldn’t call his archetype a side character. He’s more like Judas, if I had to put a name to it.”

 Furuta crossed his arms as he leaned back contemplatively against the wall. “He stayed loyal to Arima until after his death, if he’s really a traitor he kind of missed his window.”

Touka wondered how these two could discuss human beings so easily like they were discussing a weekly manga series.

 “That’s exactly why it’s interesting. Arima’s already dead, and yet his feelings aren’t settled. I can’t read, if he loves Arima, or hates him. That plain face refuses to give away anything at all.” Touka had known Uta for a long time but that was the first time she had seen an actually hungry expression on his face. Perhaps it wasn’t hungry, it looked a little lonely too.

 “Arima was my brother you know, don’t you care how I feel about him?”

 “Not really.” He put a hand on his neck, right where it was lettered with his tattoo. “I just want to see him flip, one way or the other. I don’t particularly care about which way it ends up.”

 Furuta moved his hands in front of his face. “You’re always too indecisive Uta, the ending should be the best part.”

 Uta closed his dark eyes. “You’re the last one who should be telling me about that.”

 “Hmmm?”

 “This is a pretty drastic change of plans. I’ve always had a difficult time telling if you’re a clown yourself or part of the show, but I think a switch might have been flipped in you as well.”

 Furuta chuckled low, they sound like rumbles coming from the earth more than anything. “It’s nothing like that, I assure you.”  
  
“What is it then?”

Furuta put a hand on his chest. “Just like Kaneki, I want to try living for the sake of others.”

 Uta, who despite being a clown was usually quiet, snorted right then. He looked one second away from bursting out laughing.

 “Now you’re just being mean, I’ve really turned over a new leaf you know, I thought you were all about watching people change,” Furuta said, the meek voice he performed so perfectly with coming back into use.

Touka chose that moment to open the door and interrupt. “You’re nothing like Kaneki,” She said flatly. “I thought you two were supposed to be looking for him, not shooting the breeze while you’re on the clock.”

 “Sorry Uta, my new boss is such a hardass. It seems I can never escape from those types.”

"I’m right here you know," Touka said, tightening her fingers again into a fist. Before she could act though, Uta spoke up for her.

“We tried to look but couldn’t find him, does Renji know where he is?” He stepped in between the two of them, and the two simply followed after him. Kaneki was more important than the daily squabbles, that seemed to be the prevailing attitude of Goat at the moment.

“Uhm.. yeah… he’s… I know… he….” Yomo fumbled with his words again. Touka knew that Kaneki had asked him to do something difficult. Still, like Furuta said earlier, she should have at least had equal standing with Renji.

Wherever they were going, Furuta did not seem to have realized either. There was a curious look in his dark eyes, but nothing much else.

 As they walked out, Uta took a step forward to follow them. At the last moment though, he felt something tug on the back of his sleeve. He looked back to Take, holding him by only the fabric on his elbow. “How moe,” Uta muttered.

“What?” Take asked.

“Nothing.”

 “I had a question I wanted to ask you. It’s easier though, with just the two of us.”

Uta knew exactly where Renji was taking Touka and Furuta. He wanted to follow just to see Furuta’s face. At the same time, that would mean Take would be likely to forget his question the next time they saw each other.

 “The two of us and Roma you mean.”

 “I’m Roma!” Roma said excitedly.

 “I was ignoring her. What I wanted to ask was…” He pulled Uta closer, with a sudden and unexpected burst of strength and whispered into his ear. Uta smiled at the question. He decided it was more worth his time to stick around with the boring support characters right now.

 

♔

 

Renji led Touka and Furuta through a maze of shipping crates. Touka felt relieved that Yomo had decided to live with her awhile ago and gave up his residence here. After all, knowing Yomo, he probably got lost in this place a lot. Perhaps that was why he was always late to show up to things.

 When they finally reached the crate Kaneki had gone too, he was already waiting for them outside. In his gloved hands, he carried a book. It was one of Takatsuki Sen’s works, Touka had forgotten the title. The Black Llama’s Fried Egg Sandwich, or something…

 “You didn’t have to come all this way to find me. Touka, and Furuta, I’m glad you’re making yourself helpful.”

 “Yeah you’re right, I wouldn’t have to either if you made yourself more available,” Touka said with her hands on her hips, hostile.

 “I see, I see, Touka, sorry about that. I’ll only be a moment.” He said as he walked to the other side of the shipping container to find the door. Touka could hear it creaking open slowly. Her mind had not yet put together what was waiting on the other side, though.

 “Ouch, Freezer burn,” Furuta said as he touched her shoulder, and then dramatically mocked like she had burned him.

“Are you trying to say something?” She looked back at him with one eye.

 “Obviously. Why are you being so cold to dear, dear Kaneki? Don’t you think it doesn’t matter where he wanders to, as long as he comes back.”

 Touka bit her own lip. He was twisting her words, but she could not find a good way to retort. Just then she didn’t need to, though, the shipping container came alive with noises. She heard desperate begging for food, and something bashing against the wall. It was a sound she recognized.

Rize!

 Not since Shachi had left with her, did she think she would see the troublesome binge eater again.

 Furuta had been laughing in a low voice behind her, but the sounds suddenly made him stop as well. For the first time in as long as she had known him, Furuta looked utterly speechless. No, he looked worse than that, as if gravity suddenly applied to such an aloof individual as himself and he was feeling its weight for the first time. His whole body began to subtly shake. Even from so far away she could hear it, the increased sound of his heartbeat. If it was this loud for her, Furuta probably could hear nothing else. When he finally opened his mouth, he was gasping for breath as if the air had been twisted from his lungs as he slowly deflated.

 He looked like he might collapse into a singularity at any second, as if it took all the strength in his body just to continue standing there in one whole piece.

 Furuta’s mouth was open but nothing could come out of it. Before he could say anything, a voice called out.

 “Shachi! Papa! Anybody? I heard laughter! Sou-chan is that you? It’s dark in here.”

 Furuta laughed. It was clearly an anxious laugh.

 “Hey, I can smell you. You smell so delicious. I want to play tag again. I want to eat you up.”

 That was enough for him. Furuta could not stand there anymore, he ran off in the opposite direction. Touka hesitated, as she heard Kaneki’s voice attempting to calm her down.

 “Come on Rize, don’t you like this word? Shuu-uu, it means sudden shower. Shuu-shuu. I like the sound of it, I think it sounds beautiful.”

Touka decided right then, and ran after Furuta.

 When she caught up to him, he was leaning all of his weight against a wall, grabbing his sides and laughing. The laughter… it looked painful to her.

 “What’s wrong? That’s just Rize... she’s been like that for awhile.”

 “So he really didn’t tell you, huh?” Furuta said looking away still. “Of course he didn’t tell you, he doesn’t tell you anything. I’m the one who dropped the steel beams on Rize that day. It’s probably best for me to stick around there, she’ll try to kill me.”

“Maybe we should get you back there then, after all,” Touka joked. Furuta didn’t laugh. All that came out of him was that same pathetic, wheezing laughter. “Hey, did you really do that? Why did you do it?”

 “The why of the action shouldn’t matter, look at the state she’s in. There’s no reason to justify that, come on Miss Manager, you’re supposed to be the moral one here.”

 “Yeah, but why did you do it?” Touka asked again.

 “What a morbid curiosity you have.” His eyes traveled back to her for a moment, and then down. She wondered where he was looking, staring at the ground like that. Perhaps some deep place underground where no one would ever be able to reach. “You know what I wish? I wish I had died, right after I had helped Rize escape. It would be the perfect ending, my last act on this earth a sacrifice of pure love, but no… I had to live.”

 Touka kept quiet. Not exactly understanding what he was getting at. Kaneki had only told her bits and pieces of the garden, how Furuta, Rize, Hairu, they were all ghouls from that place and that’s why they should help them.

 “It’s impossible to love somebody who's not there, you know. Slowly, over time, all of that love will waste away and turn rotten. I wonder if Yoshimura felt the same way when he was waiting for his daughter to return. Maybe the reason he never tried to reunite with her, is because over time he became more and more disgusted with her, to the point where he hardly even knew her anymore. Yet no matter how much he wanted to distance himself, the two of them would still be connected.”

 “You can never give a straight answer, can you?” Touka asked. Furuta shook his head. She knew, this conversation was empty. So Touka, simply walked away leaving Furuta there.

 

♔

 

The next time she saw him, Furuta was standing behind the counter in an apron again, smiling as if nothing had happened. She walked out of the back room with a bouquet in her hands. The flowers she had picked earlier with Koori Ui, she stole some away for herself.

 “I’m going somewhere,” She said, holding the bouquet over her shoulder.

“Do you want me to accompany you, Miss Manager.”

 “You’ve done enough for one day.”

 Still, between Furuta and Roma she didn’t think she was leaving the shop in good hands at all. If only Koma and Irimi weren’t legally dead, they wouldn’t have to spend most of their time in the back.

 Just then, to her relief, the cafe door opened with more members of Goat. Koori Ui once more was leaning on the shoulder of Tsukiyama. There seemed to be blood on his face. “Did somebody rough up the Ikemen?” Touka asked.

 Ui blinked, not sure what she was talking about. Tsukiyama behind him whipped Ui away as he tried to pose boldly. “Ui si afflicted! He’s a tragic gentleman! As a gentleman in kind, I had to lend him a shoulder, sympatico!”

 Touka had no idea what she meant. Then again, she did not care either. She told Tsukiyama to watch the shop, and walked out. She felt a little sorry for Koori Ui. He looked exhausted from having to deal with Tsukiyama the entire walk over.

 Her trip took her to the hospital again. She didn’t go often, maybe once every other week or so. The first time she looked up online how long it would take flowers in a vase to rot, and made sure only to go when she needed to replace the new ones.

 She pulled out the old ones from the vase, and put a new set in, the pink ones. She hoped she would have better luck than Koori Ui had with his flowers. Then again, as she looked at the unconscious ghoul investigator whose hospital room she was visiting, apparently he had been in a coma for years so he probably would not get too judgemental about flower arrangements.

 She fluffed the flowers one last time with her hands so they would look more presentable and less freshly picked, and then turned around to leave. She had not said anything at all to the man in the bed. It was probably… she didn’t need too, it’s not like he could hear her anyway.

 Just as she thought herself out the door though, something suddenly caught her wrist. Touka turned around, to see a doll, or maybe a child, holding onto her. Oh, she thought, with a creeping sense of dread. Suzuya Juuzou had caught her by the wrist.

 “Have I seen you somewhere before?” Juuzou asked, as he breathed deeply through his nose. The last time she had seen him, she smelled of vomit. She was glad she had been eating normally today then.

 “Who knows, I see a lot of people,” Touka responded passively.

 “Did you ever meet Shinohara? Is that why you’re leaving flowers for him?” His eyes immediately went from her to the fresh flowers. Apparently, he had been thinking about this mystery for a long time.

 “I used to volunteer in this section of the hospital three years ago, I felt sad for this kind looking old man who still hasn’t woken up after all this time.” That was the story she had practiced again and again before she decided it was safe to risk coming here.

 “Shinohara’s not old…’ Juuzou said weakly. She thought he might let go, but his grip tightened around her wrist. “That’s kind of useless, Shinohara won’t come back any faster whether you leave him flowers or not.”

 He turned his head back to look fully at Shinohara now. Touka being so close could not help but notice, he smelled strange. It was familiar in a way she could not quite put a finger on. It was illogical though, there was no way a ghoul investigator should smell this familiar. As he turned his head so sharply around, she saw a button at the back of his neck, that looked pure black, and wondered what it was.

 She didn’t think about it for long before a broad shouldered man appeared behind Suzuya. “Come on, we don’t have time for you to harass random volunteers. The bureau chief wants a word with us.”

 "Alright, S3  Squad Leader Cookie.” Juuzou let go, immediately and obediently.

Urie looked smug. He turned to start walking away expecting Juuzou to follow behind. “It’s bureau chief advisor, if you want to go by my full title and rank.” He let out a puff of hot air. “And, Kuki! Not Cookie!”

 Suzuya did follow, but not before sliding his hands into Urie’s back pockets. Urie squeaked. “What are you doing?”

“Looking for candy. You can’t be a good squad leader if you don’t carry candy in your pockets.” Juuzou said, in a matter of fact voice. Two investigators, she thought rubbing her wrist. She was lucky, just to get off with a sore wrist.

As she walked outside though, the clouds began to open and rain poured again. Maybe she wasn’t as lucky as she thought. As she stood there, hair beginning to stick to her face from its wetness, an umbrella opened above her.

“Miss Manager, it’s a good thing I reached you in time. MM-san ordered me to follow you with an umbrella the moment he heard it might be raining, something about acting like a proper gentleman.”

Touka was not really listening to his explanation though. Still holding onto her wrist, she asked, “How did you even know where I was going.”

“I use the same algorithm to predict your actions that I do for Kaneki. I just ask myself where the stupidest place possible for you to go would be, and look, I found you right in front of a CCG hospital.”

Touka said nothing. He was right, it was pretty stupid.

“Hey, hey, which one were you visiting,” Furuta continued to talk. It was all he was good for after all.

 “Yukinori Shinohara.” She didn’t need to answer. She did anyway.

 “Huh? Really? I thought you’d at least visit one of the more sympathetic ones, like Fura-san, or Shirazu’s sister.”

 Touka looked back at him with one eye. “What would you know, you don’t have sympathy for anybody.”

“I have sympathy for people who deserve it!” Furuta protested. He walked around her in almost a circle, like a snake might as they coiled themselves around a meal. “I’m just confused is all, why Shinohara of all people? He died, trying to kill kind old Yoshimura-san you know? Are you trying to forgive him for that? To forgive yourself?”

 Touka gave him no answer, as she knew he would just keep talking anyway.

 “You’re laying flowers at the grave of Shinohara rather than your own father, why is that? Is it because Shinohara is a human, and your father is a ghoul? Are humans more innocent to you?” Furuta finally asked.

 Touka had had enough of his prodding. “Humans don’t have to kill anybody.”

“Yeah, they don’t have to, but they still do. Distinguishing between one and the other is kind of garbage when both sides are garbage.”

 “You’re garbage.” Touka fired back. It was a bad retort, she knew it. “What do you mean, choosing him over my own father? My father has nothing to do with Shinohara.”

 Furuta’s mouth genuinely fell open for a moment. “You mean you didn’t know? I put it together the moment I heard the name Kirishima. I’m a bit surprised neither of you siblings were a Koukaku like him though.”

 “How do you know that?” Touka sputtered in response.

 “Well, they know the kagune types when they make the quinque after all. I had to handle the paperwork for it.”

 She looked down at the ground. Even though Furuta was holding the umbrella over her head, she still felt the rain falling on her. “So he was dead all this time, huh?”

 “No,” Furuta said a completely empty expression on his face. “He’s still alive.”

 “You just said-”

 “He was harvested for a quinque, but the Arata Armor is so valuable that they decided to let him grow and regrow it multiple times.”

 Her father.

 He was alive… and yet dead at the same time.

 “Shinohara was the one who brought him in you know, because Mado thought he would make a nice quinque. He’s been skinning your father over and over again for years, and wearing that skin like armor.”

 Her father was alive.

 “He used that same armor to destroy your home, and when he captured all the people of Anteiku, he was going to skin you all like rats, too.”

 Her father was dead. Shinohara had killed him. Yet her father was still alive. He wandered away. He was snatched away. He fought the ccg investigators and killed them. He was hunted by them for his kagune.

 “Hey, hey, do you still want to forgive him? Personally, I think it’s unforgivable, just like what I did to my sweet-Rize chan.”

 That should have done it.

That was enough for Touka to finally give up and punch him. He had won the game. She looked at him for a moment, and something inside of her had clearly snapped. He closed his eyes in anticipation but no punch came.

 Touka suddenly threw her arms around him. A suplex maybe… he thought. No, nothing else came. Furuta opened his eyes and looked down. Touka’s face was all wet, but he was holding an umbrella over her head.

 Oh, she was crying.

 She was holding onto him and crying.

 Furuta knew why.

 “You smell exactly like Kaneki,” She said into the folds of his shirt. "I hate it."

 “I know.”

His hands hovered empty in the air behind her. He did not want to touch her in this moment. He had been trying all this time to push her to a breaking point, but now that he had, he didn’t feel particularly satisfied by it either.

 “Touka, about fathers…” he said, his voice quieter than normal. “Well, I killed mine, so…”

 “Would you just shut up for once?” She said, her voice shaking from the force of her crying.  
  
So for once, Furuta did.

 He let go of the umbrella and let it fall to the ground. Then stood there, letting Touka, and the rain, pour as much as they pleased on him without saying another word.

  _Shuu, shuu_. Touka thought.

_There’s nothing beautiful about the rain falling at all._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hajime Hazuki finally escapes from his straight jacket. It's been seven chapters, somebody must have forgotten about him.


	7. Laughing with a Mouth of Blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hajime Hazuki is just a kid.

Hajime could remember it now, the taste of blood in his mouth.

 In class, they told him smells, sounds, and tastes, those could hold a stronger trigger for memory than sight. Hajime was in the advanced class. He sat in the front. So he would not forget.

 He didn’t want to forget.

 His mouth was throbbed. That was the first thing he remembered after waking up from the anesthesia, and then afterwards as his tongue explored the inside of his mouth he tasted blood. It was metallic. Humans were never supposed to really taste such a thing, so he tried to forget about it.

 An arm reached for him dressed in a white coat, he knew the hand because it was his father who had been operating on him. Hajime was drowsy, so he was happy to hold onto the hand for support as he walked down the hallway.

 In the background he heard whispers as he was led hand in hand down the hallway.

  _"Operating on your own children, is that ethical?”_

  _“Such invasive surgery and he’s so young.”_

  _“That has to hurt.”_

 Hajime shook his head, trying to make those voices physically exit his ears. He was used to this feeling, of being under a microscope. Both of his parents were doctors. Since he was young, he had been looked over again and again with two sets of discerning eyes. His parents even took him to a childhood psychologist when his favorite character in Kamen Rider died one week, and he refused to tell either of them what was making him so upset the whole rest of the week.

 Just before this surgery, Hajime reached a breaking point. His teeth were crooked just like any child’s, but he wanted to get braces when he was older like a normal person. He saw it on tv, two teenagers with braces trying to kiss and getting them locked together. That was growing up normal, he thought.

  _"It’s going to hurt! it’s going to hurt! I don’t want it to! How can you say you two care about my health, when you do things that hurt me?”_  
  
His parents took a step back. For a moment each of them seemed afraid to touch him. They looked at the other.

Finally, it was his mother who reached down and pulled him into a hug.

“It might hurt now, but we’ll make up for it later. You’ll get to take a week off of school, and eat ice cream afterwards.”  
  
In the background, his father smiled, with hands on his hips. “After that, you’ll have such a pretty smile when you grow up, all the girls will be thinking about your handsome face.”

 “I know it’s hard to understand but, we’re doing this so you can be with us as long as possible.”

 Hajime was not a particularly sickly kid, but he had gotten used to seeing the inside of a hospital. That’s where his parents were. He had no real friends yet despite being old enough to, but he didn’t really need any either. He had two hands, and two parents. As long as he could walk down the street with his parents holding onto both sides of him, he wouldn’t need anything more.

 Hajime understood now, why his parents were doing this. He wanted to stay with them forever too. His mother waited for them at the end of the hallway, and grabbed onto his other hand. As they walked out the door, both of his parents worked together to swing Hajime forward in rhythm with their steps.

 That night, he remembered the taste of ice cream in his mouth. It was much sweeter than blood. The coldness of his spoonful managed to soothe the ache of his jaw.

 Hajime went to sleep in between the both of them that night. Happy, because he knew that because he agreed to the surgery, he could fall asleep like this with them every night. The next morning, when his parents called into daycare and told him they would be working late that night again, Hajime did not even throw a fit as he usually did.

The daycare lady waited with him as the last child for hours. By this point she knew him well as the only child whose parents continually failed to pick him up. She was kind, and even when the time passed that his parents said they would arrive and no-one came, she decided to simply walk him home and spend the night until his parents called.

 Hajime thought the daycare lady was nice, but her hand was nothing like his father's.

 His parents did not come home. Even though he waited for them all night.

The next morning, Hajime smiled when he heard a knock at the door rushing to open it. Only to find two men in suits staring down at him. Hajime could not read the look in their eyes, only much later did he remember.

 Pity.

 Memories like sound, touch, smell, the brain stored those easier. Even now it lingered on his palm, his father’s rugged, firm grip. Even now it lingered on his tongue, the taste of ice cream that night.

 Those memories felt worthless to him.

 When the casket creaked open, Hajime looked with tear soaked eyes at what remained of his parents. Nothing. No faces. In that moment Hajime realized in horror, he did not remember what their faces looked like.

 The parents who promised they would be with him forever, their presence, their memory, all lost to him now. He bit down hard on his tongue to prevent himself from screaming. He was a good child after all. He did not want to ruin his parents funeral service.

As he stood there alone and held onto the hand of a stranger, Hajime tasted blood again.

_At least my teeth are straight._

_Mom, Dad, thank you for that._ _  
_ _Your parting gift._

_I’m trying my hardest right now, and I can’t… but I’m sure one day I’ll be grateful._

 

♔

 Solitary confinement bored him so, Hajime began to consider the benefits of biting off his own tongue. The chance he would die choking on his own blood, he wondered, is that risk worth how cool it would be to suddenly spit a whole mouth full of blood on the special class the next time he wandered in. That would be a good laugh at least.

Unfortunately the sound of the door opening in the middle of his deliberation spoiled his prank. As expected, there stood special class bowlcut. Oh, former special class bowlcut now.

 “I’m letting you out now.”

 “Has the master come for me, bark bark.”

 A mistake, Hajime intended to make him regret it. He did not even need to wait until Ui fully undid the bindings. All he needed was a centimeter more of room, and he could dislocate his shoulder and then use the area to summon his kagune.

 Koori Ui, a human yes, but a human who sympathized with ghouls. The idea made his stomach curl. Earlier, he overheard Ui joined sides with Goat in order to feed human meat to a ghoul. A coward who could not let go of his dead partner. Nothing like his parents, so brave they resisted even giving scrap meat from the hospital trash to the ghouls who threatened them for it.

“Don’t talk about yourself like that. Quinx or not, you’re still just a kid after all. You never should have been put out to the doghouse in the first place, metaphorical or not.”

 Ui undid the bindings of the straight jacket which so tightly constricted his back. Hajime was given more than a centimeter, much more, but he did not take it. As in that moment, Koori Ui put his hand on his head.

 Disgusting. Ghoul sympathizer. His hand was too calloused to feel anything like his father’s hand.

 “Our king won’t let you rejoin Zero Squad, even when I explained to him you used to run drills with us, but come with me to the provisions squad, Hajime. I’ll make you my responsibility.”

 Oh, thought Hajime. A good enough reason not to kill him right away. He could laugh more later, if he waited.

 “It’s not Quinx.” Hajime finally said, looking up. His eyes flickered, one black, then two, then one. “We’re better than Quinx, Furuta himself told me. We’re Oggai.”

 “Oggai?”  
  
“It’s the death Kanji twice, but cut in half and glued together.” Furuta leaned on the doorway, standing half in and half out. From this angle, Hajime could only see half of his face.  
  
“So, like death death?”

 “You’re not respecting all of the thought and symbolism I put into that name, Ui-san!”

 Ui looked back to Hajime. “Ah, no wonder you’re attached to that name so much, a child came up with it.”

 When he heard originally, he did not want to believe it. Even though Kaneki Ken stood there in the flesh and gave him the news. Furuta surrendered to Kaneki Ken. The man who promised him power to avenge his parents. Power the academy was too afraid to give him.

 If Furuta stood there so casually in the doorway amongst another traitor, then he must be a traitor as well. Damn him. Hajime had thrown a fit and attacked the others to try to defend the man he wanted to support for bureau chief candidate and all it left him was tied up in a mansion for a month.  Hajime did not want to accept this. “Liar!” He said, struggling suddenly against the remaining bindings he had as Ui slowly undid them. “Traitors! I won’t work with either of you! Take me to Kaneki Ken himself!”

“The king is busy!” Ui raised his voice to try to reason as he struggled against Hajime. The boy lashed out against his arms even further.

“Oh, Ui-boy. You should know that Kaneki is like a god to Hajime. I guess I forgot to mention that until now, whoops. Maybe you should have gotten him to come along instead of me.”  
  
“He’s more than a god, he’s a human who was able to climb his way up to become a god! I have the same surgery as him! I’ll become just like him and kill just as many ghouls.”

This man was leading a revolution for ghouls. Koori Ui stopped to think for a moment. Oh, he had won the white Osmanthus award too. He was a part of his rebellion now too. He didn’t want to think about that. He glared back at Furuta, “What happened to -san?”

“It felt more appropriate for the moment of watching you wrestle against, excuse me, lose a wrestling match to a twelve year old.”  
  
Furuta’s assumption proved correct as Hajime suddenly ripped out of the rest of his binds, and then, in a fit of childish pique dug his teeth into Ui’s shoulder. Rather than to the child, Ui directed his anger back at Furuta again. “Why did I even bring you here?”

“Well, I only agreed to come because I wanted to get on the good side of the beautiful Coffee Manager.”  
  
"Furuta, tell me it's not true! About the Washuu, about the CCG! I wanna slaughter ghouls like you said!" Hajime cried out, but among those two it was basically white noise. Adults ignored the cries of children easily. 

“Whatever your reason, help! Only a child can understand a child’s logic…” Ui said staring flatly at him. 

“I thought it was the responsibility of adults to take care of children. Oh, but fine…” Furuta raised his hand in front of his mouth and cleared his throat. “Hajime! Is what you really wanted, to fight ghouls?”

Hajime stopped. He removed his teeth from Ui’s shoulder and wiped the blood on his sleeve. “What do you mean, Mr. Surrender?”

“Children, really so cruel these days. What I mean to say is, if you fought ghoul’s the CCG’s way, the empty notion of justice would get in the way of things. You’d only get to fight a few, and with weeks in between..”

“Empty?” Ui said in the background, but he was mostly ignored  
  
“What you want, is slaughter. You’ve been waiting since you were seven years old haven’t you? Isn’t that enough? If you join with Ui’s squad you can take them both down, humans and ghouls, show them their lives are equally worthless.”

Furuta crushed something invisible between his fingertips. Hajime imagined it to be a butterfly. To him, Furuta struck him as the kid who would take a butterfly, and while it was still alive, pull off each of its legs, and then tear its pretty wings in two. He could sympathize with that kind of desire, it was the reason he wanted to follow Furuta in the first place. 

“I understand.” Hajime crawled off Ui then. “I’m sorry, I’ll cooperate from now on.”

 Even though Hajime agreed to go along with him, Ui’s face looked mixed. His brows were heavy and knitted themselves together. He tilted his head forward ever so slightly, so his bangs fell in front of his face. “That’s not the kind of logic you should convince a child with.”

Once again, he was talking to Furuta rather than him. Hajime wondered why. They were both children after all. The only adult in the room was Ui himself. Suddenly, Ui stood up and took his hand beginning to drag him out.

“You need a change of clothes, you smell terrible. You could at least try to look presentable.” He muttered under his voice as he pulled Hajime along. Hajime wondered what Ui thought he would smell like after being stuck in the same straight jacket for weeks. “You’re my responsibility now…”

 To Ui those words seemed to be especially significant, but Hajime himself knew it was a lie. When those two men in suits came to pick him up the day after his parents funeral, they said he was their responsibility but he never saw them again. Much later, he saw a man with a cross under his neck, who reassured him that he would take responsibility to change the world for his sake. Hajime never saw him again, either.

 He realized quickly, adults only cared about children that were their own. To other children, they shuffled them around to other adults, again and again. His parents were dead. The only people obligated to care about him were gone. There would be nobody here for him at the CCG. Nobody in the whole world in fact.

 That thought kept him quiet, until Hajime found himself being stripped for a shower. “Hey, I can do it myself pervy bowl cut!” He spat a bit of saliva mixed with blood in Ui’s face. “Really, if they could have at least sent a female investigator to baby sit me.”

 Hajime turned around and slammed the door behind him in Ui’s face.

 "Have I become a babysitter now?”

Furuta giggled behind him. “You were always a babysitter, Ui-boy.”

 

♔

 

Before leaving with Hajime to meet up with Tsukiyama, Furuta put a hand on his shoulder and pulled him in close. Hajime had the senses of a ghoul now, Furuta must be as stupid as he looked if he thought he would not hear a whisper.

“The truth is I didn’t come here just to suck up to the manager, I also wanted to suck up to you, Ui-san.”

 “Keep your mouth to yourself,” Ui replied drily.

 “So mean, well I suppose it’s deserved. I did lie to you.”

 The passive and meek Furuta, who held onto Koori Ui for support. The same one who seemed to change the next moment and boldly lay out his plan of defense against the clown operation. “Which lie did you tell?” Ui asked.

 “Now that’s a philosophical question,” Furuta avoided answering.

“If it was about hiding the Oggai, after the Clown Raids I would have found out about them sooner or later. I would have stopped you.”

 Furuta wagged a finger in the air. “No you wouldn’t have. I would have used Hairu to stop you.”

 "You were going to revive her with the same technology?” Ui’s eyes widened.

“No, I was never going to. I would just keep her in that tube all day and dangle her there in suspense.”

 Hajime heard the sound of Ui’s teeth grinding. “Why? Why to her?”

 “Not to her, to you. That way you’d always have something to come back home to when you were done fighting. I’ve got good romantic advice for you, Ui-boy. If you love something, put it in a tube.” With that, he poked Ui on the shoulder and pushed him away slightly.

 The way Ui was beginning to grind his teeth, he reminded Hajime of a police dog, waiting to be given the order to kill. “You’re sick.”

 “Am I? I just wonder, if being in a tube is different from being in that room all day while you run out to fetch food for her.”

Ui was already walking away though. Furuta just needed to get in the last word. He really was a child, Hajime thought. His hand was suddenly grabbed, and he was being dragged along too.

“Never grow into an adult like Furuta,” Ui said in a low voice. Oh, he was speaking to him.

  
“I don’t think Furuta ever grew up at all.” Hajime said, as he was pulled along. That time he was not trying to be insulting. He just thought it the truth.

 “It all would have worked you know.” Furuta called after them.

 Ui stopped where he was standing. He did not look at either of them, Hajime or Furuta. “I know.”

 “That’s your weakness, you get too emotionally invested into things. If I had to guess why Arima picked Take over you, it would be for the same reasons. Unlike Take, you would have never been able to let go. That’s why you would have thought I was really your friend.”

 “...I did.”

 Ui got the last word in. He quickened his speed to leave before Furuta said anything else.

Perhaps sometimes he could be a child too. Hajime wondered briefly what an adult really was.

His parents, he decided on. They were adults. They thought of him. They thought of their future. The people within this building, only seemed to think of themselves. Furuta, most of all. His beloved soon to be or never was, Bureau chief might as well have been the only person in the world. 

 

♔

 

“A yakuza den, really? Isn’t this a little cliche.”

 “You see the cliche as something to be avoided, but there is value in relishing in the artful repetitions of life.”

Tsukiyama, Ui, Hajime, and a few ghouls covered in hoods sat in the back of a truck that transported them. They would be sitting silently, but Tsukiyama insisted on speaking the whole time with enthusiastic flourish.

 Ui only spoke once at the end, and that was when he recognized the destination. “Besides, isn’t it just like one of those scenarios you imagined when you were a kid. Going alone in and running and gunning against a whole army of thugs, taking them all down and keeping the streets cleaner and safer.” Tsukiyama said, coming up behind him to clasp him on the shoulder.

Ui remembered the revolt he felt when Mirumo announced he wanted to die like a human. The feeling he had now, reminded him of then. “Those kinds of stories are better off in books with heroes of justice, than in reality.”

Hajime wondered why the ghoul was acting so friendly to a ghoul investigator. Perhaps he was just an idiot. Another thing he had noticed about adults, deduced from Furuta and Ui's conversation is that they often exchanged words that indicated little about how they really felt. Empty words. Useless. Useless adults.   
  
“Reality can be an art too as long as we make it that way,” Tsukiyama said as he raised a hand to single the driver. 

The truck stopped, and they slowly climbed out. Even the man with the crescent shaped hair managed to keep his mouth shut the entire time. The plan was simple, V’s grip on society was so tight that even the criminal underground really did not understand the finer points of ghouls. Otherwise they might have tried employing them themselves as easy murderers for hire.  
  
Tsukiyama walked straight into the middle of a meeting space, where two gangs were hashing out their territory. “Pardon Moi, Scusi! Would any of you gentleman happen to know where the bathroom is?”  
  
Just as expected, he was immediately stabbed from both sides. Tsukiyama tipped forward for a moment, but stepped and caught himself. When he straightened up, his suit was covered in holes, but the knives that touched him were flat pieces of metal. “Really now, that’s no way to treat a guest.” His eyes turned pitch black.

 The members screamed ghoul, and several different swear words. Ui clasped his hands over Hajime’s ears from the doorway they were both hiding behind before he could hear them, though.

At that instant ghouls emerged from every doorway.

 Ui looked back to his squad and commanded them to break off with him. That included Hajime too. They were in charge of searching for any stragglers who might get away, as the Yakuza’s hideout was rather labyrinthine.

 Hajime could hear the sounds of slaughter in the other room. Really, it was just his luck to be stuck with such a lame job and a lame babysitter. This mission had been almost cool. No wonder the great king Kaneki had thought about it, killing yakuza just like a vigilante. Just like Kamen Rider! Well, Kamen Rider fought aliens, or people that were turned into monsters. These were just regular people who decided to become monsters. Rather than doing a bunch of kung fu and having technicolor explosions happen in the background, people just bled and died. Hajime thought that made it even more cool.   
  
Except they were only allowed to kill humans, how lame.  

Ui reached for his hand but just then he heard the sound of a knife sliding out “Hold up! I ain’t dying like the rest of them.” Ui picked up the brief case he had been holding on the floor. When he pulled back the handle it shifted into a spear.“A spear? What are you an idiot?” The Yakuza said as he raised the much more practical weapon out.

Ui quickly twisted his entire body to the side to dodge, and as he came up again closed the distance between them and shoved the bladed end of the spear right between the man’s eyes. “Yes, I am.” He said solemnly, as he lowered the spear. The man who had died instantly, fell off of the blade slowly, and as his face hit the concrete bled onto the ground. “At least I’m not a dead idiot, though.”

 Ui took one moment too long to stare at the human corpse in front of him.

  _Killed.  
__Have I killed?_

 Hajime laughed. The oh so powerful adult in front of him shaken up by killing a baby guy that was going to kill him anyway. He knew this operation was lame. The scent of blood was heavy in the air though. Maybe he could salvage the night.  He ran following the smell of blood, until he came upon a room with two of the hooded ghouls they had come with.

“Kid? What are you doing alone are you alright?”

 “Hey, if it’s too much for you we can run away now, and explain to the king later we had to for your safety.”

 Hajime grabbed his chin and pulled his neck to the side all the way until he heard it crack. His eye snapped black too, and before the ghouls could figure out the meaning of it, Hajime’s kagune grew out of his back all at once.

Holding things in wasn't good, it all came pouring out at once. Rize’s kagune picked one up. The other barely had time to react.

“A one eyed brat!”

 Hajime did not appreciate being called a brat, so he shoved his kagune straight in the man’s mouth.

 Using up all of that Kagune juice (for he did not know what else to call it, he was still just a kid after all) at once, however, made him tired. Perhaps, it was not the best thing for his health to immediately use his kagune after being tied up for a month. Hungry, he was hungry. Teeth, his parents told him it would be good if he had straight teeth all of his life.

One of Rize’s kagune tentacles that drifted near him, suddenly began to change. He saw it divide and grow teeth, and then snap at the air.  
  
“Don’t eat me, we’re the same thing, idiot.” Hajime said glaring at it. The tentacle went away and tore into one of the dead ghouls instead.

Which is how Koori Ui stumbled upon the scene of a boy he thought human until just a moment ago, cannibalizing the corpses of two ghouls.

 “Oh, hi there,” Hajime said casually. He would probably have to kill Ui next then too. He could probably handle him, if only because right now the man was mentally unstable. If he dropped the name Hairu one too many times he was destined to crack. The real difficulty would be that confident and loud Tsukiyama fellow. Perhaps the two of them would just kill each other after Hajime finished off the rest of the forces here. Oh well, if that happened he would get to see his parents again.

 As he was plotting all of that though, Ui had moved in and kicked him away from the ghoul corpses. Hajime skidded across the floor and watched for what the man would do next. Ui raised Taruhi, not towards Hajime though, but rather the corpses.

Ui began to dice them up further until they were unrecognizable. The kagune scars he had left on each of their faces slowly began to fade away. Now they look just like my parents, Hajime thought.

When he finished, he left Taruhi in the middle of the ghouls' face. All that there was left to do was wait until the operation ended. 

 

"Non!"

Tsukiyama declared when he walked in. Hajime was confused, because at that moment he saw Ui smile like an idiot.

Tsukiyama’s drawn kagune was wielded like a sword, as he angrily charged forward and swiped it again at Ui. Ui blocked him with Taruhi, holding him at a distance with the sharp end of the spear. The two of them held each other at bay, and looked up to stare into each other’s eyes.

"Pardon my french, but what the fuck?”

 Ui looked up. “Be careful, there’s a child present. Though I doubt a ghoul like you would have that decorum.”

“I’m a gentleman! I’m nothing but decorum.” Clang. Clang. They were fighting with weapons made of flesh and yet, it sounded like metal bashing against each other in an arena of knights. “A human who kills his own allies doesn’t get to insult my manners, whether they were ghouls or not.”

 “I suppose so.”

 Hajime felt pity for Tsukiyama in that moment. Despite his rage to avenge his comrades, and the dead eyed look Ui had at the moment, the two of them seemed evenly matched. He was only a child, but, as a weak child he knew quite well emotions meant almost nothing no matter how strong they were. Hopefully they would kill each other. He didn’t feel that sorry for either of them.

 Hajime started to giggle.

 Tsukiyama heard Hajime in the background and paused. Ui, he had something to fight for. There was no reason to be this reckless unless…

“I see. For him?”  
  
“Yeah…”  
  
_For who?_

 “After this is over, I’ll have to take you in front of the king.”

_The king?!!!_

“I know. It’s my responsibility after all.”

 _Oh_ , Hajime thought as the sounds of slaughter in the background he was enjoying just fine until a moment ago faded away.

  _For me._

 

♔

 

Ui was brought to stand in front of Kaneki Ken with french ghoul on his left side, and symbolic goatee ghoul on his right. Hajime had no idea who the left guy was, but heard he stayed back on the mission because he was not a ghoul who was good at fighting.

 That confused him. What else are ghouls good for?

 “Ui-senpai, I thought you of all people would be able to read the room.”

 Ui shrugged. His hands were useless at his sides with both of the ghouls gripping firmly onto him. Ui Koori had a bad habit similar to Hajime’s own. When he was backed into a corner, he grew audacious and could not help but smile in the face of the danger.

 It’s because he was a coward ultimately. That’s what he admitted to himself as long ago as the Anteiku raid. “Yeah, so you’d think.” Ui replied with an empty voice.

Kaneki had only one man at his shoulder, and even the ever vigilant Take was more distant than usual. He sat at the corner of the room watching the whole scene. That meant one of his shoulders was empty. Hajime wanted to speak up and beg Kaneki to let him have the other shoulder. To remove him from Ui's care and let him sit on his lap instead, but his voice died in his throat the moment when Kaneki began to speak again. 

 “Why did you do it?” Kaneki’s voice quieted. “I thought if Hairu were… oh, so that’s exactly why.”

_The king is really smart, I knew it. He understands people. He can make use of them, he has Ui in a vice grip right now._

“You shouldn’tve gone and told me that she needed ghouls to eat sometimes too. You of all people should know how dangerous a desperate man is.” Ui said.

  _That was probably the king's plan special class bowl cut. He wants to turn you into a dangerous weapon against his enemies. He knows how to make people strong. Don't you know, he was just some hapless kid with no parents and he became the strongest ghoul of all time._

Kaneki brought his hands to his mouth and thought. As if there were a scale in front of him, and he needed to weigh the value of those lives, the two ghouls and his former if slightly untrustworthy senpai.

_The choice is obvious. Those ghouls are worthless. Come on king._

“Ghoul investigators, kill five for each life you took. First class or higher. I don’t want to punish you Ui-senpai, I’d rather be a merciful king.”

_Ah, how cool. That's what I would have done. Any choice that leads to more slaughter is good._

Ui had been standing resolute until that moment, but then his smile widened like there was a crack in his face. “Ten? Even if they’re my former comrades.”

_He's just like me. I turned against the Oggai too, because I was so disappointed in them. They weren't strong enough to keep fighting ghouls forever, they wanted to fight for peace, and the destruction of the Washuu instead._

“You’ve won the Osmanthus Medal several years in a row, that’s far more than a hundred lives. I’m asking for a tenth of that. If you want to continue to play knight for Princess Hairu, you’ll have to drive their heads into spikes.”

 _Sasaki won it too. He won it his first year of being an investigator. I looked it up. He was only a rank 3 at the time. It took you several years to climb to that rank. You two were both born inhuman but Sasaki became so much more than you._  
  
Tsukiyama seemed so angry at the thought of his comrades being betrayed. However, when he heard that line about ghoul investigators heads being driven into spikes, he smiled right then. Hajime did not understand it at all. The king was not even looking at him, why was he bothering to act?  
  
Ui did not want to admit he was right, so he simply looked down. Before Kaneki could say anything else though, in the background he heard another screech. The strength drained out of his posture and he began to slouch. “Really, that woman…” He said, with a disgruntled look on his face barely befitting a king. "Mothers are such a drag sometimes."

_I'm like you Kaneki. I'm an orphan too. I have Rize's kagune, I got it implanted in me because Furuta told me it was a surgery that would improve my life. So please look at me._

"Hi..."  Hajime finally squeaked out awkwardly. 

By that time Kaneki had already turned around in the room and left. 

Hajime tried not to think about how Kaneki ignored him the whole time. He tried not to think about why an adult like Kaneki, a strong and cool king, who stood on his own without any parents, would start talking about mothers like a child would. 

Only then, did Banjou and Tsukiyama let go of him and Ui began to tremble. “You could have just put the blame on me, you know. I would have been happy to kill more. It wouldn’tve even been a punishment.”

 Ui looked back at Hajime.

 “No, it was my mistake. I deserved to be punished. I should have known it was wrong to use you in a fight like that.”

The bearded ghoul walked away to tend to what Kaneki needed of him, but he looked at them with a sad expression. Tsukiyama lingered, placing a hand on his chest once again. “Monsieur.”

 Take called out to him as he lingered in the doorway. “Hairu… did you tell her yet?”

 Ui looked back to him. His eyes looked weak to Hajime. “No. I don’t know anymore, if it’s the right thing to do.”

Take’s face was unchanged, even by the other looking him in the eye. “Whether you tell her or not, Arima Kishou will still be dead.”

Ui looked down now. “The one he trusted was you, not me. You should be the one making the decisions for the rest of zero squad, Hairu, and those kids, too.”

 Take strode forward and tried to touch Ui on the shoulder. It would have been an emotional gesture if his face had changed at all once this entire conversation. As it was it just looked a bit uncanny. “She’s not in zero squad anymore, she left it with you to become your partner.”

 “So she could become a special class, and earn Arima’s praise on her own.” Ui turned his shoulder away, suddenly, violently. His hair fell in front of his eyes as he somehow looked even further down. “You heard your king, I have to stand on a pile of corpses to continue on with Hairu. Perhaps it doesn’t matter whether I tell her or not, I’ll have become a god of death by then, I will.”

 Ui walked off.

 Hajime tried to sneak away to follow Kaneki, but Tsukiyama caught him by the collar right then and yanked him forward.

 

♔

 

“Well, let’s not make waste of our dead comrades,” Tsukiyama said as he pulled an apron around himself.  
  
Ui hefted the second body up onto the table. “You ghouls are always so morbid.” He glared at Tsukiyama who seemed to be dressing up for the occasion. “You don’t need to be here you know, I’ve stripped a body down before.”

“Non, non, non!” Tsukiyama repeated again, and suddenly there was a finger wiggling in his face. “Preparing a ghoul body is not the same as preparing a human! It will taste awful to Hairu! She’ll hate it, unless we do something special.”

“Special?” Ui repeated.

 “A gourmet treat! We’re going to cook jello.”

 “Why am I here?” Hajime said in the background.  
  
Tsukiyama did not lose any momentum and instead pointed to him. “My half ghoul friend, as a child, adults should teach you to cook at some point in time. It’s a valuable skill to learn.”

“We would need to find some adults first,” Hajime said, looking at the man in the apron, and the other who looked like he had not slept for two weeks.  
  
“Ignore the brat. How can we make jello from a human body?”

 “The same way you make it from a horse’s hooves, all you need is the protein.”

“Wait, that’s what’s in Jello!” Hajime immediately stuck out his tongue. For a moment, the thought of that was more disgusting than cooking up human or ghoul remains.

 As he expected, despite Tsukiyama’s offer to help all he really did was boss the two of them around like servants the entire time. Ui stopped once to ask Tsukiyama why they had to be the one to make it while he gave orders, if he knew how to do it.

Tsukiyama paused for a moment. “It tastes better if it’s made with love.” He said it with some distant smile, that Hajime knew could not belong in this room but rather some far off place.

 Either way, the time passed annoyingly, and Hajime found himself walking down the hallway at Ui’s side again as the investigator carried a dish with blood red jello warbling in his hands. Hajime noticed, he stood so strong in front of Kaneki but now he was shaking.

“Hairu, I brought you a present!”

 He said walking into the room with a smile.

"Ah! No way! It looks like real food.” Even though Ui offered her a spoon she immediately dug into the jello with her hands. Ui winced at the lack of manners being displayed. With her mouth still full, she gave a jumbled “Thank Shou!”

Thank Shuu indeed, Ui thought.

 “This tastes as sweet as the candy Juuzou used to share with me, and the melon bread we ate in Kanda.”

 “Oh, you remembered that too…” Ui said softly.

 Hajime felt something on his back, and realized that Ui was pushing him forward. “Little Hajime here helped me bake it for you too, you should thank him, that’s good manners.”

 “Oh, I remember him,” Hairu said, and though the atmosphere was dour when they entered the room, she smiled and it was like the sun cut through all of it. “Thank you, Hajime!” To hear a pretty girl say his name like that, Hajime felt his heart skip a beat.

 “You should hug him too, he likes hugs. That’s what we call him, Hajime the hugger.” Ui said, his bad habit flaring up again.

“Huh?” Hajime looked confused back to Ui. Suddenly though, he had something soft and squishy wrapped around him. Oh, how strange, he had not been held like this in so long. “Hey! Let go of me!”

 “You said you wanted to be babysat by a female investigator right? Hairu, from now on Hajime will be your personal attendant. Let’s take care of him between the two of us.”

 Hairu withdrew and put a finger to her lips as she thought. As she let go and stopped supporting him, Hajime fell on the floor practically fainting.  “Hmmm, he is cute I guess. Okay!” Excitedly she moved back to the bed, and drew her knees up to her chest. “Soooo! Did Arima say anything about me? Did you ask him when I could start fighting again?”

The smile that Ui was wearing suddenly froze. “Ah, no, sorry Hairu. He’s the one eyed king and all, so he’s super busy. It’s not like I can find him hanging around the Cafe.”

 “Oh…” Hairu’s head sunk a little further. Then she just sort of… fell over on the bed. “That’s okay.” It was clearly not okay. “I’m used to it. It’s always been like this. It’s really boring in this house, though, Koori, can I leave it?”

“Of course you can. I’ll take you to :Re.”

“I don’t like that place. It smells too much like coffee. Can I go somewhere else? On my own?”

 “Hairu you know that’s dangerous, you’re a-” Ui paused. He walked forward and sat at the end of the bed. He saw her hand empty there, and clearly wanted to touch it, but stopped just shy. “I’ll bring you whatever you want, so you won’t be bored in this house.”

 “I want Arima to come. If I can just see him once, I’ll wait the rest of the time, I promise. Until it’s safe for me to fight again.”

 Ui’s eyes grew heavier. “Hairu, you don’t need to fight.”

“Of course I do. It’s all I am. A ghoul investigator.” Hajime wondered why that sounded so sad. He waited his entire life to become a ghoul investigator. He was so eager he let a man cut open his back and sew Rize into him. 

“You- you’re not-” Ui tried to say something but the words would not come. Just like Hajime though, adults could never really say what they were really feeling. “Arima can’t come here, I told you he’s busy. Don’t you want something else?”  
  
“No,” She turned her head away even further now from him. “It’s all I want. Even after my body became like this, hearing Arima was still alive, was here, if he would look at me I knew everything would be okay. I was saved.”

 Ui’s expression grew more and more complex. Hajime remembered Ui walking away with that bat when Hairu was starving. Arima had done nothing. The one who saved her was him.

 “H-hairu, I… I’m looking at you.” He said, turning his head back to her suddenly only to be met with the back of her head. She did not react to his words at all. Ui crawled over to her side of the bed, until he loomed over her. “I want to save you…” He said in a soft voice, before leaning down and kissing her.

 Hajime closed his eyes right then. He knew something adult might happen and that he was too young to see it.

 He almost regretted it, because he heard the sound of flesh being torn in the next moment. When he looked up, Ui had recoiled and stumbled back to his feet. His lips were bleeding. “I’m sorry, that was inappropriate conduct…”  
  
He muttered before grabbing Hajime and running. He's such a coward, Hajime thought. He didn't blame the man though, kissing girls seemed scary. 

 ♔

Tsukiyama gave the two of them a sympathetic expression when he saw Ui’s blood covered face. “A tragic gentleman needs a good drink to soothe his worries.” Tsukiyama draped Ui in a coat, but at the moment Ui did not seem to be paying attention to much. He lingered for a moment to stare at the open doorway to Hairu's room, through which he could see a vase of flowers in the corner. They looked untouched, not so much as glanced at.   
  
"Monsieur gentleman, did you pick those flowers for your lady love?" He asked with a hand on Ui's shoulder.   
  
"She's not my - yeah, I don't know the meaning of them though. I just happened to pick them at random."  
  
Tsukiyama shook his head. "They're anemones, no hope, a lost love, forsake or forgotten."   
  
In the corner, Hairu once again sat holding her knees to her chest. Ui took a fleeting look at her as Tsukiyama led him away. 

 A few minutes later they had rushed all the way to the Re: Cafe. Hajime was the last to walk in, and as he did another pretty lady rushed out. She must not have noticed him because he was so small. It was tough being a kid sometimes.

 When he walked in, Furuta was behind the counter and Tsukiyama was dabbing at Ui’s face with a few napkins.

“What did I say? She wouldn’t be able to injure your pretty face if she was a head floating in a jar, Ui-boy.”  
  
“You sound completely insane.” Ui shot back at him deadpan. He looked a bit too done to even deal with Furuta’s antics.

Take and Uta arrived together to the cafe once more. When Take saw Ui’s face though, his eyes slightly widened. “Did you tell her the truth?”

“What truth?” Uta asked in the background, but Take ignored him.

“No. I kept lying. I know now if I did tell her the truth, she'd probably kill me, then Sasaki next.” Ui said, before chuckling off that morbid statement. He sounded a bit like Furuta, Hajime thought.

 “Who would have killed him?” Uta asked in the background, but Take ignored him.  
  
"Hairu is your partner…” Take said.  
  
“Oh, so that’s who.” Uta concluded by himself, because Take was ignoring him.

 “Arima is dead, you know…” Ui repeated the words as if he just now believed in them. “Hairu worked her whole life to get praised by him, but he died, before he could utter so much as one tiny word of praise for her. Isn't that just sad?" Hajime thought it was sad. It was only natural to want to be praised by your parents. When he accepted the tooth surgery, and didn't complain about the pain his parents praised him.   
  
Arima wasn't her parent though. Hajime wondered why she was so fixated. It must have been another adult thing. As he stared at Ui's expression in confusion, Ui's face continued to worsen. "Even if she’s alive right now, when she learns her reason for living is gone, she’ll want to die again.” His fingers tightened against the bar. “No matter what, that can’t happen.”

Oh, Hajime thought. Just like my parents, he wants to keep living with her forever. 

Take put his hand over the other’s before he left any scratches on the bar. “A reason to fight built on lies, isn’t much of a reason.”

 “Arima lied to Hairu all along, and she fought well enough. Hirako, do you know? Why did he do that? What did he want from her? Maybe if I knew I could…”

 Hirako’s expression changed. The conversation must have been heavy indeed because that was the second time now his sly face shifted. “It's not like I'm keeping quiet because I don't want to help you.”

 Ui looked at his inscrutable former best friend. “What are you trying to-??”

 “It's nothing.”

 “Ooh, juicy!” Uta said behind him. "Did you hear that, Take didn't react again."

Roma had somehow scooted up next to him. “Meatballs, meatballs!”

 “You ridiculous clowns! This tragic gentleman hardly needs an audience like you!” Shuu, who had been watching the whole thing quietly, finally exploded and slammed his fist against the bar hard enough to give the Cafe a shake.

 “Really, some people can be so rude.” Furuta said as he leaned forward against the counter. Only to suddenly feel the side of his face smacked, as he was pushed to the ground.  
  
“You! You’re the worst of them all!”

 “Bullying me like this isn’t fair when I’ve already apologized MM-san! Waaaaah!”

 When Furuta opened his eyes though, he saw something in his face. Oh, an umbrella. Was Shuu going to attempt to kill him the way the famous Arima had once killed a ghoul? Instead, he tapped his shoulder.

 “I’m knighting you now. If you really want to redeem yourself, you should become a gentleman too.”  
  
“So I should scream a bunch of things in French?”

 “I use English and Italiano sometimes too.” Tsukiyama leaned forward and placed the umbrella in his hands. He picked up Furuta by both of the shoulders and began to escort him out of the Cafe. “It’s going to rain soon, I can tell. A gentleman would never leave Miss Kirishima all alone in the rain. Go to her.” As he watched Furuta run off in the distance, Tsukiyama smiled. "That's good. His eyes looked a bit darker, a bit heavier, for a clown at least. He'll be able to hide it better in the rain."

 “Whatever is going to happen, will not be nearly as romantic as you’re picturing…” Furuta said with a sigh, as he was pushed out.  
  
Uta and Roma had appeared suddenly to watch him. “Go! Go!” They chanted in unison.  
  
Hajime looked to the scene between Ui and Take, and Tsukiyama standing outside just as it started to rain. He felt the tension between them, but could not decide which one he wanted to most see.   
  
“What are you going to do from now on?” Take asked.

 “Anything, I’ll keep Hairu alive, even if I have to become Arima.”

 Arima Kishou was dead.

Hajime Hazuki had heard that phrase repeated enough to know it was an immutable fact. Yet, it sent a chill down his spine when he heard it now too.

He wondered why.

 Oh, it was because Ui might die soon.

Hajime decided to go outside even if it meant facing the rain, and being alone with the loud ghoul. The clowns it seemed had gone to either follow, or harass Furuta, he didn't know which. 

"Why are you just standing there in the rain, idiot?" Hajime said, poking his head out of the door.   
  
"Don't you think I look beautiful, even when I'm playing in the rain!"  He raised both of his hands to catch the fresh rain drops. Tsukiyama Shuu closed both of his eyes, and breathed in deeply. A smile quirked on his lips. He looked at peace. It was a disgusting expression for a ghoul to have.

Still, there was a question on Hajime's mind. The talkative ghoul seemed the best to answer it. If they lacked emotions, it means they could give him an objective point of view.   
  
"Hey, do ghouls have parents?" He asked out of the blue.   
  
Tsukiyama lowered his hands, and opened his eyes again. "Huh?"  Tsukiyama had no mother but, that didn't mean he was never born to one. He looked at his own reflection in a newly made puddle and saw her there. "Of course we do, what do you think, we just grow spontaneously?"

"Well, kagune are pretty weird. Mine grew a mouth today, and it tried to bite me. It was pretty cool too."

"Kagune can be cool," Tsukiyama said, but he said the word in English with emphasis in his voice. "Sometimes mine turns into a dueling sword."  
  
"What was your family like, did they try to eat you?" Hajime asked again. Not caring to be subtle, after all, it was not like he could hurt a ghoul's feelings.   
  
"No, my father fed me. When I thought it was too painful or cruel to eat humans, he went out of his way to make up a fairy tale about how they were honored to eat me to ease my pain. Not just my father, I had a large family, when it was raining like this somebody who loved me brought me an umbrella."

Hajime tilted his head. That sounded far beyond what a normal parent would do. It was beyond what his parents did. His parents were human. They loved him. They made him go through all those surgeries because they cared about him. 

"So... they loved you, and you were always happy, even though you were ghouls?" The words did not make sense when he said them aloud.  
  
Tsukiyama looked beautiful in the rain, but just then, the sadness of the sky seemed to infect him. "No. They suffered a lot, because they loved me."  
  
Hajime shook his head, childishly. He didn't get it at all.  
  
Tsukiyama knelt down in front of him. "Let me guess, you came out here because you wondered why Koori Ui looks like he's about to die?"  
  
He nodded slowly. 

"He's suffering for the sake of the person he loves. It seems like he's suffering for your sake too. I can't give you an answer as to why though, because... I'm just somebody who brought down suffering on all of the people he loved."  
  
Hajime blinked. There was something welling up in the corner of his eyes. Oh, a tear? A lone stray ran down his face. He had not cried in so long. Not after the two men in suits told him it was useless and wouldn’t bring his parents back.  
  
Koori Ui was suffering for the sake of Hairu Ihei. He loved her in a way that was entirely different from the way his parents loved him. Not only that, but he had tried to care for Hajime. He cared so much he might die. At that moment though, Hajime Hazuki realized that could not happen.

_Please don’t die._

_Hairu. Ui._

_You said you’d be responsible for me._

_If you die, then I’ll be alone again._

At that moment, Tsukiyama noticed the tears running down Hajime's face. He was delayed, if only for a moment by the rain. Tsukiyama had already been kneeling down, so it was as simple as reaching into his pocket and pulling out a handkerchief to wipe the boy's face. 

"My dear Hajime. You handsome boy. You too, you look beautiful even while standing in the rain."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who is the mysterious woman screaming for Kaneki? Find out next chapter. Spoiler warning it's Akira.


	8. Hyperballad

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everybody is selfish, except for maybe Hinami.

She was his hostage, he said. He only took her to ensure his own survival, so he said.

Seidou Takizawa carried Akira in his arms, carrying her injured body like a bride, except with how little noise she made she looked more of a corpse bride. That idea made his already jittery body shake even more. Fingers tightened around her, and he pulled her closer so Akira would not be awoken, he needed to hold her steady.

A slight hitch in her breath, Takizawa heard it as her head unconsciously slid itself into the crevice of his neck. She bobbed up and down as he carried her, walking in complete silence across the entirety of the island. There was no need to rush even if any officers did remain, they would be too tired to pursue him. Even the ghoul next to him, one who surely wanted to kill him for what he had done to Tatara, was too tired to try anything against him.

Little Bin, Owl, and Spine User, all of them terrible in their own ways. Akira was a ghoul investigator, the exact kind of ghoul investigator that Seidou always dreamed of being, but he remembered the way sweet, little Hinami would curl herself up into a ball and hide away from the world whenever she heard of the ghoul investigator who still used her parent’s corpses as weapons. Yet, they had survived, while a good man like Houji, and a good man like Amon, both died to pave the way for their survival.

He knew it was wrong for him to survive, but he wanted to live anyway. Akira in his arms, she really was there to ensure his own survival. His parents, Amon, Tatara, Houji, all of them fell to the ground and all of them he stepped over without hesitation. Akira though, he could not bring himself too, even when she screamed for him to die like a dog in his face.

All that time as he sat alone in his cell, and even before then, what kept him alive was the thought that she might look his way. To be alive, or to be dead, Takizawa Seidou was not sure what the difference between them was anymore. Sometimes he felt like he was both at once, a schroeddinger’s ghoul. If he had a choice though, he would prefer to be alive.

As he saw the boat in the distance, his grip tightened around Akira. _I want to live for her._ If he was alive he could see Akira, that was the difference in his mind. _I want to live with her._

“First… class…”

Takizawa’s eyes fell.

Of course, even his desire to live was unrequited.

Much later, when both Banjou and Hinami left the room, Takizawa Seidou saw Akira shiver on the hospital bed she laid down on. Really, those ghouls were so inconsiderate. They had no sense of manners at all. He should know, since becoming one, he had become quite the rude person.

His pale fingers gingerly picked up the blanket, pinching it as if it were some foreign object. Most days Takizawa just slept huddled up in a corner with only his own cloak to wrap around himself. He pulled it over Akira. Even with a blanket though, she continued to shiver.

Takizawa worried his black lip with his upper jaw, biting into it hard enough to bleed. The wound healed so instantaneously, that Takizawa did not even notice. He spent all day around her, but Akira had not woken once since the island.

His ears twitched, in the distance, he heard the mutterings of goat. Damn this body of his, the only thing he wanted to pay attention to in the whole world was Akira right now. The blanket was not doing it, perhaps if he held her in his arms once more, just like back at the island she would warm up. Before he could even act on that impulse though, Takizawa bit into his own hand to stop himself.

No, if Akira were to wake up next to him right now, it would not be the domesticity he imagined. Not the fantasy of waking up next to her every morning, of getting to sit at the table and talk about work idly before they returned to their lives of protecting Tokyo. It would be like waking up to see a serial killer sleeping next to you in bed to prepare for the kill.

Takizawa even looked like one, a monster you would put on a movie poster. Amon still looked the same after all this time. His mouth traveled to his fingers, as he casually began to chomp at their ends, his own nervous habit. Drool began to seep from his mouth, too. Disgusting, he was disgusting.

Takizawa finally turned away from her, his eyes downcast. “It’s better if you don’t wake up, then you won’t have to see me.” He removed his hand, still sopping with drool, tinged slightly red with blood. “I’ll make everything right, before you wake up… so you can be happy.”

With that, he pulled his hood over his head, and left for the goat meeting. He heard the words ‘Lab’ and “Suppressants’ and already put two and two together on what his path should be next. If he could fix everything perfect, he would find Amon there too, and then when Akira woke up, she could wake up like Amon was the one who carried her off that island, and watched her by her bed for this whole month instead of him.

“A…. mon….”

He heard Akira mutter again in her sleep.

“I know, I know, really some women are so demanding….”

Takizawa said as he pulled his hood up over his face.

  
♔

  
Takizawa stood there with his hands up in the center of the lab 4. He wore the maintenance uniform, just as Kaneki had instructed him to do, but oh no, it looks like he had gotten caught. One of the lab members lectured him on how this was a high security area, and they would not let their work be stolen by other firms.

Oh, so that’s what they thought he was up to. Takizawa yawned. Drool dribbled from the corner of his lip, down the side of his chin. Really, being lectured was terrible, no wonder nobody listened to him when he was called to teach at the CCG academy.

“I’m not a thief, I’m just a murderer. There’s a difference, really,” Seidou said with a roll of his eyes. One of those eyes suddenly snapped to black. Before they could so much as gasp in surprise at his remark, Seidou released an Ukaku burst. Both the scientists and the guards holding batons at his neck were torn through like shrapnel. Blood splashed in every direction around him.

“Oh no, I won’t be able to return this…” Takizawa said, as he gripped the shirt of his stolen maintenance uniform to see it soaked through with blood. Out of the corner of his eye, Takizawa saw motion. A lone survivor. She must have been behind something. She darted away from him, towards some control panel.

“Like I’d let ya!”

Takizawa jumped after her, slamming his foot into her back as he descended from above like a bird of prey. He reached his talons into her hand and tore it off before she could reach for whatever it was she was desperately grasping for.

The scientist fell onto the ground, looking in shock at the empty space where her hand had once been. Takizawa probably tore it off so fast, the pain did not even register to her yet. He pointed at her with her own fingers and growled. “Try that again, and I’ll take the other one off too, stumpy!”

“I did my best Chieko,” She muttered as she closed her eees and leaned back against the wall. Takizawa stuck the fingers of her arm in his mouth, chewing the fresh flesh to get rid of the nausea in his stomach from RC suppressants still in the air. The whole room stunk of the stuff.

Takizawa knelt in front of her for a moment. “You’re not going to bleed to death just from losing one hand really, I lose mine all the time.”

“It’s too late, go on without me.” She said, eyes still closed even though she was obviously conscious.

“Really, you inflict much worse pain to ghouls on a daily basis when you turn ghoul’s into quinques. I was an investigator you know, I know the technique, you don’t even kill them before you start extracting.”

That got the scientist shaking. “Are you going to do that to me?”

Takizawa tore off one of the fingers of her hand, and idly crunched the bone between his teeth. A nice snack. He liked to talk to people while eating, that was why he was constantly inviting them out for drinks and dinner. “Nah, who said that, I’m just saying y’know. Anyway.”

Takizawa tore off his sleeve right then, tearing it into a neat strip. He was wearing his Aogiri uniform underneath anyway so it didn’t matter. He tied the strip of cloth tightly around her stump of a hand. She shook the entire time while he did it, making it way harder than it needed to be. Annoying human. When he was finished, he saw the cloth start to soak through with blood, and stopped and tore off another one. It was tedious, but when he finished, he had both tied her hand up firmly enough to stop the bleeding, and also tied her to a pipe hanging from a low ceiling in order to keep her hand elevated and stop her from getting close enough to press any more buttons.

“Hey, who do you have in that tank over there?” He finally asked.

Chieko grit her teeth and shook her head.

Takizawa turned around with another roll of his eyes. He jumped in the air, and once more easily cleared the whole room with a single bound. There was enough RC suppressant on the top of the tank that he could easily pilfer half of it, and he would still probably not wake up whatever was inside for a whole month.

He started to remove the tubes one by one. “Re:, huh? Isn’t that Italian or something for king. I wonder who is in here then. Mr. King, whoever you are, they really are giving you the royal treatment.” Takizawa fondly rapped his knuckles on the top of the cage. “I feel sorry for you though, guy. I’ve been in your exact situation ya’ know. Maybe I should wake you up, no matter who you are I’m sure you don’t deserve this…”

In the corner of the room, Chieko watched him, slowly overcoming the paralysis that shock had left her in. When she felt like she could finally open her mouth again, she immediately began to scream for help.

He had been leaning forward to try to look through the glass of the container, but he suddenly stood up when he heard that annoying noise. The alarm activated a moment later. His eyes traveled to the cameras, he had been sure to destroy the lenses, but the audio still must have been intact. “Fuck! Why you gotta do me like this Chieko?” He screamed back at her. They were screaming at each other, and the alarm screamed in the background, so much for being quiet like Sasaki warned him to.

“Sorry Amon, it looks like I’m still a murderer. I couldn’t even save this poor sap in the tank to make up for it.” Takizawa said as he lept down from the tank, rc suppressants still in hand. He clutched them close to his chest as he darted down the hallway at full speed. He needed to rendezvous with Sasaki.

He had only kept her alive to try to interrogate her about Amon’s location, but now there was no longer any time to kill her with the alarm blaring. _I screwed up again,_ he thought. _Even if it was just his corpse, I know you’d rather wake up to see Amon again then myself. I’m sorry I couldn’t bring him back home._

This place would be swarming with doves soon, there was no point in staying behind to make one last ditch attempt to look for him. It was better that Akira wake up to somebody, then nobody at all, he thought. No, he knew that was just his wishful thinking. _I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry._ The word repeated endlessly in his head like a broken record as he jumped from a balcony, down to a lower part of the lab where ninety nine children and Haise Sasaki stood.

“Waaaaaaah! Sorry!” He said as he landed in the middle of them and clamored towards Kaneki.

  
Kaneki pulled his mask back over his face. The eyepatch was torn off from earlier, so Seidou could see both his human and ghoul eyes. There was no anger in his expression though. “It’s fine, Seidou. I anticipated you would trip the alarm when I sent you off on your own.” _You already knew I was a failure, well that’s good, at least it means I didn’t disappoint you._ “All I ask is you fight by my side so we can escape together.”

 _You’d rather have Amon, right? You’ve wanted it since your days as eyepatch, the two of you fighting side by side to change the world together. Yet you’re trying to be kind right now, even though I plucked your eyeballs out one by one and ate them. Then watched them grow back and ate them again._ “Yeah sure whatever, I don’t care for whatever you’re on about, but it’s the easiest way to get this stinky liquid back to Mado.” _Nobody’s been kind to me for so long. Thank you._

Kaneki smiled to him underneath his mask. He could see in in the way the leather and zipper both moved. A pleasant smile, under such a bloodthirsty print of teeth that had been carved into that mask. Seidou stuck his tongue back out at him.

The two of them who had once gave their everything in trying to kill each other, now led the fight to escape side by side. Since becoming a ghoul, Seidou had learned a lot of things about them, but the thing he learned most of all was that the relationships between ghouls were really weird. As the two cut a swathe through the human guards, he tried to think about that, about what would be waiting for him on the other side, as he could only think about living in this moment.

_You won’t want to see me though. I know it. I know why. It’s not that you didn’t care about Takizawa Seidou, but because Takizawa Seidou died in that prison._

“Takizawa, I’m not going to give up and neither should you.” Amon said to him through that wall.

_Amon never gave up. Even if he’s a ghoul, he’s still alive unlike me._

_I know he’s still alive, even if he’s not within this lab. I know he’d stay alive because Amon is the person who would never give up. I’ll find him. Someone you can live with. Someone who would never give up on you either._

_I know deep within your heart you still wanted to save Takizawa Seidou, ever since that day he left you in the Anteiku raid. I wish you could have saved him. I wish I could be him. I’m more like Haise Sasaki though, then Kaneki Ken. I’m the body he left behind._ He thought that right as he dragged his Kagnune shaped like a sword, through the head of one of the investigator’s guarding this place with an ukaku quinque. It reminded Seidou of the one he used to wield, Yan, borrowed from Houji. _I’m Owl, damnit!_

Much later, Takizawa stood at her door. The surgery was successful, Banjou instructed him in a kind voice that she might wake up any moment, and it would scare her if she woke up alone. He raised a hand towards the door, but hesitated.

_If I could, I would in a second. I too… want to…_

He let his hands fall at his side and turned around. Takizawa walked away, slumping his shoulders with a terrible posture as he walked while his eyes stayed down.

Perhaps if Takizawa had lingered a bit longer, he would have heard it. Akira stirring in her sleep once more. “First class… Seidou… Amon… Taki…” Instead, he walked away, pulling his hood down over his face once more.

Then again, perhaps he wouldn't've heard it. When dealing with people, remember this, oftentimes, they only hear what they want to hear.

  
♔

  
Takizawa could hear the shouting from the other room. Kaneki returned with a smile on his face, having endured all of it. In the hallway, both Take and Takizawa awaited him.

“Oh well, ‘I killed my father’, is probably a bad thing to say to a woman the first thing after she wakes up,” He said casually, as he scratched the spot on the back of his neck right below where his white hair hung loose.

Take’s face as usual was unaffected by his morbidity. “It’s important. It’s better to just get it out now rather than put it off and potentially leave room for misunderstanding.” His eyes darted away from Kaneki for a second as if he were thinking about something else.

“I’m just worried, she’s not facing reality you know. The people who are hunting her down are the CCG, and the people who saved her are ghouls, but she doesn’t want to accept it.”

Takizawa, silent still looked up. All three of them were former ghoul investigators, but Kaneki Ken called himself a ghoul. Unexpected.

“Her environment’s changed drastically, from the CCG to the ghoul’s side. We can’t even hope to understand the emotional burden she’s bearing. It’s going to take some time to break the ice between us.”

“What about the emotional burden I’m bearing...” When Takizawa looked at Kaneki for a moment, it looked as if he truly cared. His long white hair had fallen over his face.

Take’s cold analysis continued as usual, ignoring the interruption. “According to my contacts, Akira Mado has already been expunged from her former role as a CCG investigator, and is currently on the wanted list of “ghoul counter-measures act violators.’ On top of it all, it’s basically impossible for her to go back to the way things once were. Though it may have just been a moment’s indiscretion, her voluntary act of shielding Owl Takizawa was what gave rise to the current situation.”

“Hey! I’m right here you know!” Technically, he had been hiding around a corner watching them, but they still must have seen his white hair antennae poking around.

“I meant no offense, I was merely laying the situation out from her perspective.” Take said, the only movement in his face being his eyes traveling towards Takizawa’s head that was now poking out. He knew he didn’t mean to insult him, because that would mean Take expressing an emotion. Still, that was exactly what stung about it. She hadn’t really meant to shield him, he knew that. It was just a moment’s impulse, like giving into a bad habit.

“Are you still hiding from her out here, Owl? The door’s closed, she can’t see you.” Kaneki said with a smile once more, teasing him lightly. Seidou supposed he deserved it, but Kaneki’s levity was still unnerving him. “I don’t blame you, Akira’s being pretty scary right now. Even so… I guess I have no choice but to take care of her. Parents are really troublesome, don’t you think?”

Takizawa shook his head. “I ate mine, so…”

Kaneki shrugged. He finally walked past him, Take moving instantly to follow like a shadow. “If you’re not willing to face her, Takizawa, that’s fine, but if you care about her you should probably find somebody who can shorten the process of coming to terms with reality. If I know Akira, it’s probably the person who hates her the most…”

“You mean sweet little Hinami? You can’t make her talk to Akira.”

Kaneki looked back at him. His eyes were colorless, cold. “Hinami’s a kind and brave person, unlike you, Takizawa. In fact, when you were fighting me, even though I didn’t remember her at all she came to save me. I know she’d do this for my sake.”

Takizawa did not have a good response. He swallowed dry spit, and nodded. Still, he had no idea where Hinami was, so he wandered around lost for a while before finding himself at the Cafe that they all seemed to end up at.

He walked into the cafe, the sound of the bell startling him a bit. The manager let out a puff of air with her hand on her hip. “Oh, so you’re still alive, huh?” He didn’t mind the sass, he was surprised too.

When the manager poured him a cup of coffee, he tried to pick it up. His pale hands shook too much though, and he ended up dropping the cup and cracking it.

“Those are some poor table manners, Mr. Ghoul investigator,” Touka said, slyly as she watched him. She threw a towel in his direction, as if to say clean yourself up. Takizawa was glad he made a habit of wearing black, even if it was just a black hoodie. Black didn’t stain easily.

“I’m not… not anymore, why do people keep calling me that?” Takizawa had meant to only think it, but he lost the filter for the things he thought and the things he said aloud a long time ago.

Touka turned her head away. Most of the coffee spilled out due to his clumsy hands, she’d need to make another cup. “What else should I call you?”

“A ghoul…” Takizawa said.

Touka picked up the filter and began to shake the grounds through it. “There are too many ghouls in the cafe these days.”

Takizawa could read between the lines. He had always been good at that. It was only because he was sensitive though, scared of what they might be thinking. She wanted to know why he was here. “I’m scared...” He muttered, hands still shaking.

“What do you mean?”

“You know… don’t play dumb. I’m talking about Akira. I’m the one who should go see her, right. That’s what you’re thinking, right…Me. Me. It should be me.” I’m running away."

  
“Hey, you there. Can you stop pestering the manager, please?” Appearing with a smile similar to the one he had seen Kaneki wearing before, was Rank 1 Furuta Nimura. At least, that was how Takizawa had known him. He had seen him around the bureau once or twice, tailing behind Kijima the same way that he used to tail behind Houji.

Except Furuta was rank 1, and he was rank 2, so even at being a toady, Furuta had surpassed him. “It’s been awhile hasn’t it, Takizawa? You’ve gotten a lot skinnier, and I see you’ve dyed your hair, but you’re still all, me, me, me, blah!” He imitated the flapping of Takizawa’s gums with his hands.

“What do you mean, I’m trying to talk about Mado,” Takizawa felt a strange atmosphere. “She’s not facing reality at all, somebody needs to…”

“Takizawa, isn’t this your fault to begin with. Aren’t you the one who dragged her into the ghoul world with you, to become a target of doves,” Touka spoke up.

“I…I know that, that’s why I want to help," Takizawa faltered.

“It’s your ego, that wants her to wake up, Ow- Takizawa," Touka looked at him directly now with one eye and a hand on her hip.

“Ego?”

“Something like, ‘Akira came into the ghoul world for me, she sacrificed herself for me, so I’ll be the one to wake her up, I’ll be the one to save and protect her’, as if everything hinges on you. It all has to hinge on you, doesn’t it?" With that, she looked away from him finished.

Takizawa went silent. He knew it all along, he could read between the lines, he had just been afraid to hear it. He didn’t really care about Akira did he, only how she related to him.

“That’s my manager, she’s as harsh as she is beautiful,” Furuta said, he put his elbow on the counter and leaned into his hand. “You know though, just because he has long floppy white hair doesn’t make him your dear Kaneki. Yelling at a second rate substitute won’t make you feel any better.”

Touka clicked her teeth and growled at him. Furuta smiled into the side of his hand, “Oooh, scaaary!”

She sighed, and finally began to pour the coffee in front of him. “I want to talk to her too, but I’m the one that killed her father.”

_Why are you telling me this. I’m not Amon. I never even knew Kureo. He watched the coffee pour in front of him. Oh, I see, the one you wanted to speak too was Amon right? If he was here, would you have said something different._

“If you go first, then won’t it just be like Rueshima again? She won’t be able to move on. Then, I won’t be able to talk to her, either.”

Takizawa looked at his own reflection in the coffee cup that was slid in front of him. It was pitch black. “Kirishima, I just wanted to see her again. On Rueshima, and all that time before that. I never stopped thinking about her.” This time when he picked the coffee cup, his hands were much steadier. “Perhaps, what I was really thinking was, I wanted her to look at me. Even after becoming a ghoul, even after it seemed like she had moved on and forgotten me completely, that I could just come back and things would be all right.” Takizawa leaned forward, his fingers covering his face. “That’s not what happened though, when I saw her again, she told me I had to die because I became a ghoul”

“Was it really just because you became a ghoul? Or is it because you killed innocent people, and investigators, not just because you were hungry?” Touka peeked at him with her one eye.

Takizawa’s head sunk even further into his hands. “I know, at least I know now. My reasons for living, it was just my own selfishness.”

“Yeah, you should have just stuck to killing innocent ghouls, like Kaneki, and your dear friend Amon,” Furuta piped up from behind once more.

Touka rolled her one eye at him. “Nobody asked for comments from the peanut gallery.”

Takizawa slurped his coffee in a loud fashion. “Why is that guy even here? I remember him, he’s the one who dragged me to Kanou, you know.”

“I know,” Touka sighed. “It’s a bit hard to explain, when Kaneki came home, things worked themselves out a bit differently than the way I expected. Now I’m stuck with this one following me around.”

“I’m just a little baby duckling. I imprint on things far too easily, especially if they’re pretty girls,” Furuta responded back, happy go lucky.

Takizawa put his cup down. His coffee was already finished. He supposed there was no reason to linger any longer, she had to deal with enough loitering ghouls. “I should go, I don’t have a reason to be here any longer.”

He stood up and once more pulled the hood of his sweater over his face. As he stuffed his hands in his pockets, over the sound of the bell of the door ringing to announce his exit, he heard Furuta and Touka whispering between themselves.

“You’re being a little bit harsh, don’t you think? I thought you were more of a romantic than that.”

Touka paused. “I only said those things, because I understand how he feels. When Haise used to come here, he looked at me too. I liked it.”

Furuta chuckled. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. It’s nice to look at beautiful things, that’s the motto of the clowns.”

“Stop calling me beautiful as a joke, it’s not funny.” She said, voice rising with her impatience.

“Awe, but I’m not joking.”

Takizawa let the door slam shut.

♔

  
“You’re going the wrong direction, the old Aogiri hideout is that way?”

Takizawa turned his head back, almost a full 180 degrees like an owl. He saw the cafe waiter, Furuta Nimura, still wearing his apron over his collared shirt, standing in the middle of the street after having followed him. “How would you know that?”

“I know a little bit of everything.”

“Is Hinami there? Kaneki told me to go find her.”

“That’s what I thought, and that’s why Touka sent me to follow you.”

He had no intention of hurting sweet little Hinami. Though, he guessed he had hurt her before. He deserved it. Seidou did not want to admit it either, his teeth bit his black lips. “You’re a good lap dog, Furuta. First Kijima, then Kanou, and now the manager.”

“Bark, bark!” Furuta happily cried in response. He curled his hand up and brought it to his face. “What, are you jealous of me and Touka, really?”

Takizawa did not want to respond to that. “Why are you calling her by her first name?”

Furuta paused for a moment. Then he put that same hand over his mouth, and giggled underneath it in a haughty fashion. “A gentleman wouldn’t tell such things…”

“Then there must be nothing to tell, because you wouldn’t have that problem at all.” Takizawa grunted as he walked a little bit faster, not wanting to walk next to someone like Nimura Furuta.

Takizawa smelt flowers, and knew he was heading in the right direction. The 19th ward base, like all Aogiri bases was abandoned human territory. This one was an arboreutum, there was a pavilion set up in the middle where humans were meant to sit and dine, while the sun shone on them through clear glass windows and flowers sprouted up all around them. Takizawa doubted that once this area hit financial ruin, the original owners intended that the people sitting and chatting in the chairs that had been left behind would be ghouls.

As he approached though, he saw through the glass two silhouettes. One was obviously Hinami, but the other… Ayato?

“What is this, a secret meeting between lovers?” Furuta piped up.

Takizawa immediately tackled him to the ground. It was easy because the other was so skinny. “Ssssh! I don’t want them to think I’m watching them like some kind of… like you would!”

Furuta blinked. Apparently, his name was becoming synonymous with creep among goat. Even though Takizawa said he did not want to watch, his eyes peered up. Even though the two of them were alone together, there seemed to be so much distance between Hinami and Ayato.

“Hinami.” Ayato finally spoke up, breaking the silence. “What’s the matter? Why’d you bring me all the way….”

“Nothing,” Hinami interrupted him.

“Well it’s obviously not nothing,” Furuta whispered.

“Would you shut up.” Takizawa whispered back harshly.

“She… She’s regained consciousness, apparently.”

Hinami’s voice cut through their whispers, and even seemed to cut through the air itself. Takizawa remembered, the only other person besides him and Banjou who loyally stayed besides Akira’s bedside every night was Hinami.

Even though he and Hinami had fought so harshly during the auction, she wasn’t scared to be around him like Banjou was. He wondered why, even though she did all that there was such pain in her voice now.

“Do you think I’m selfish?” He whispered to Furuta.

“Everybody’s selfish. Well, I suppose everybody but my dear Touka is. Why are you asking me this, did what she said back then bother you that much?”

“Nevermind,” Takizawa decided he’d rather eavesdrop than continue this conversation.

“No, no, now you’ve got me interested you can’t just back away. I mean we’re already in the bushes together we might as well go all the way.” Takizawa groaned. “What she said wasn’t a lie per se, but I’m surprised she went that far. I thought you would be her type.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Well to me at least, you look like somebody walking around with a bleeding wound. You’re in desperate need of a bandage. Hmm, maybe that’s why. You don’t want to be healed, do you Seidou?”

Seidou bit his black lips again. “It’s complicated.”

“Then that’s exactly why. Touka envisioned her perfect scenario where everybody hugged it out, and you weren’t a part of it. You’re too flawed, you can’t be forgiven so easily, you’re a joker, a wildcard. Just like me.”

“Please stop comparing the two of us,” Seidou rolled his eyes and focused back on the other two instead. He thought Furuta might be preferable to watching Hinami in pain, but he had been wrong.

“I want to… I want to remember them. When I want to. Not at another time. And someday, I want to be able to perceive what happened to them in a positive way… to be able to neatly file it away with everything else. That’s why…”

His eyes widened, as he heard Hinami begin to sob. She threw herself at Ayato, but Ayato hesitated. His hands hovered in the air, fingers flexing as if he did not know how to respond.

“Just hug her already, you’re a man aren’t you?” Furuta shouted from the bushes, popping up as he did so causing all three of the people present to look at him.

“Shut up, you clown!” Takizawa immediately lunged and tackled Furuta back to the ground. “Aaaaa! Just pretend you didn’t see us! Continue on with whatever!”

Hinami wiped at her eyes. “That’s um… sort of impossible.” She backed away from Ayato.

Only then did Ayato come to register the interruption of the two. His boot stomped against the tiled floor, cracking it a little further. “The hell are you two clowns doing here? If you were spying on Hinami I’ll kill you for sure.”

“I’m not associated with him…” Takizawa muttered.

Furuta put his hands in the air. “Calm down! Calm down!” he repeated mirroring the gesture twice. Then his hand found its way to the side of his face. “There’s no need to bare your fangs, dog of the king.”

Takizawa realized at that moment perhaps Furuta’s favorite way of taunting people was with the truth. Ayato who had never gotten along with Kaneki in the past, had been the most supportive of him when he announced his strategy of directly attacking CCG investigators. Takizawa imagined to Ayato it was a version of Aogiri where he was allowed to care about his comrades, instead of brutally leaving them behind. An ideal world, for a ghoul at least. To reach it, Ayato was growing slowly, more and more dependent on the king.

The meeting of Aogiri that converged post Auction was still fresh in his mind. Back then, he laughed both at Hinami’s plight, and Ayato’s burning reaction. Takizawa wondered if he still felt the same way.

“Besides, there’s something Takizawa here wanted to tell you,” Furuta gestured with a hand back at him.

Ayato agreed with everything the king said recently. If Takizawa told him, Kaneki wanted Hinami to speak with Mado, he was sure Ayato would help persuade her to come. Takizawa looked Hinami in the eye, and saw her eyes still were foggy with tears. He looked at his bare feet instead. Perhaps he really did deserve to be associated with a clown like Furuta.

“This was the first time I saw ya since Aogiri and all, so I wanted ta’... I mean, when we both went at it over Sasaki I kind of bailed and let you get captured so ya know…” Awkwardly, he touched the feather antennae on his head between two fingers, and pulled it down. It was far too human a gesture for a ghoul like him.

Hinami hesitated, well, it was unexpected. Takizawa was rather unapologetic about every aspect of himself. “It’s okay, I accept your apology!” She said, trying her best to sound cheerful. “Was that really what you came all this way for?”

Takizawa closed his black lidded eyes and turned away. “Yup.” He grabbed Furuta by the back of the collar, almost choking him as he yanked him back and began to walk away. Furuta still struggled and tried to talk while choking.

“Ack-! Good luck you two lovebirds! Ayato, come find me later if you want to see something interesting!”

♔

“Agh! Damnit! Stupid cat!” Takizawa said as he struggled to pull away the white cat that had attached itself to his face. Behind him, Furuta was laughing, but not offering to be helpful as expected.

Rather than walk through the door holding the cat as he planned, Takizawa stumbled ass backwards through it and crashed onto the floor. Maris Stella gave one last scratch to his face and then plodded off of him. The cat jumped up to Akira, and curled up comfortably right next to her.

“Maris Stella!” Akira awoke with a start.

Takizawa’s eyelids fluttered. It felt like somehow, the cat had managed to leave scratch marks on him though he knew that would be impossible without quinque claws. “Y-yo!” He said, awkwardly lifting himself up off the ground.

“Have you come to kill my cat now too, Takizawa Owl?” Akira said, coldly as she reached to grab onto Maris Stella and pull the cat close to her chest.

“Wah? I think the cat was trying to kill me.”

“She was defending her master, as all good and proper cats should.”

“A good and proper cat should be declawed.”

“I’m appalled you would even suggest that, any good cat owner would know that declawing is a cruel procedure that permanently harms the health of the animal.”

Takizawa bit his black lip. Her treatment of that cat is way more humane than even her treatment of me, he thought but did not say aloud. “Mado! Listen, I don’t want to kill anything.”

“Does it matter whether you want to or not? You’re a ghoul, after all.”

You are a murderous ghoul. Nothing had changed since their last conversation. She was right though, he would always be a ghoul. It was deeper than biology, when he cut deep into him, Kanou had torn apart his soul and stitched back what was left together into a mess. Even if he wanted to, he couldn’t change or redeem what was left behind.

“You’re right, I’m not a ghoul investigator anymore, but neither are you. You can’t cling onto that anymore! Really, read the room for once in your life, Mado! You’re surrounded entirely by ghouls, the one who saved you was…”

“Amon.” Akira interrupted him. She was not wrong. He had been choking her, and Amon tore his hand off, swooping in like a hero in a flash. It was exactly what Takizawa had wanted to do but he failed utterly.

“Amon’s a ghoul too ya know,.” Takizawa squeaked back pathetically. He had been trying to move closer all this time, but he took a step backwards and leaned against the wall instead. He had nothing to hold so he crossed his arms.

Akira’s grip tightened along Maris Stella. “How did you get her?”

“I enlisted the help of a shady man, to pick the lock to your apartment.” Behind the door he could hear Furuta’s giggling. Of course he was eavesdropping now of all times.

“Amon would never have done something like that. Even after becoming a ghoul, unlike you, he still held onto his values.”

Takizawa sighed. “You were a ghoul investigator back then though. Even if he had been living peacefully, just because he was a ghoul, wouldn’t you have had to kill him if you found him again?”

Takizawa knew that the CCG did not only hunt murderous ghouls. He had heard Hinami’s story. Before she was a member of Aogiri, she was a child clinging to her mother’s hand. “I… I lived all these past years as if he had died. I whited out all emotions I held, and poured myself into my work. I don’t even know what I would have done at this point.”

_Amon would probably bear it all. If you told him to die, right to his face. He wouldn’t fall apart like the weak me._

“So you didn’t remember me at all, huh? That’s fine, it’s for the best. There would be nothing left to remember, the Takizawa that you knew died three years ago in that prison.” He thought once again of Hinami, of their fight over Sasaki. “The person you moved to protect that day, it wasn't....I'm sorry...”

Takizawa had a hard time finding the words. Perhaps it was because his mind, just like his body, had become increasingly more patchwork as time went on. 

Akira looked down at him. “You can get off your knees, former rank two. I don’t need your apologies.” Two. The word felt like acid to him. “That wasn’t my intention at all. Back then, I was just trying to resolve my own guilt for letting you go.”

Touka’s words occurred to him then. The world did not entirely revolve around him. The small part of him that hoped Akira really did protect him because she wanted him to live smouldered out. In fact, he was barely related to this situation at all. He was just an interloper demanding attention. “Yeah, that sounds about right.” It was painful, but he managed to stand back up again. “You might not believe me but, I would be happier too, if Amon was here to greet you and you could smile because he came back. I couldn't fix things right though, so now I should just go before I mess them up further.”

Takizawa moved to stand up and leave finally. Just as he turned around though, he found himself caught by Akira’s grip on his elbow. He tried to tug her off, but she held on. Really, she was too strong for a woman.

“Are you going to go off and die now?” She asked, her voice choking something back after it had been so cold all this time.

“That’s not really your business anymore,” Takizawa said without looking to her.

“Are you going to leave me behind just like he did?” Takizawa froze. He remembered what Furuta had said to him. That his body was like walking around with an open wound. That he made others want to bandage him up. When she leaned his head against him, she could feel his heart beating. The heart rate increased with her touch. He was reacting to her, she must have known. "You don't feel dead to me, but, if you leave you really will be dead."

Akira right now, was showing him the same kind of thing. He was closing himself off though, and trying to appear strong because he knew that was what Amon would do. Amon was not here though. Perhaps, perhaps he could try something else to convince her out of that bed. “Mado I…the reason I attacked Haise that day, I was jealous. Kanou cut me to pieces and then sewed me up again, and every time he did it, he said it was because he was trying to make another Kaneki. I don't know when, but I started to hate Kaneki. Then I started to hate Houji. Then, the whole CCG, including you. That's the kind of person I am.”

Akira gave him no response. She simply clung to the fabric of his shirt still.

“I know I was wrong in the past, but I can’t change it either. When I sleep now, Kanou appears again and again in my dreams. Houji’s there now too. It’ll never go away no matter how much I want it to, don’t you see? I don't want you to be like me, because you can still move on. You don't have to cling to the past.”

Akira raised her eyes, and for the first time, she seemed to be listening to him. Even though he knew it shouldn’t, the sight of her eyes alone made his heart leap. “If you don't want to cling to the past, then why… why were... why are you you thinking about me? Why do you want me to look at you?”

Takizawa met her eyes then. Amazing, this time one of them didn’t need to be dying for it to be so. “It’s stupid really but…I'm afraid that if you don't look at me, then I really will die.”

_I never once stopped thinking about you. Even as I was torturing Haise. Even as I ate Hachikawa. That’s fucked up isn’t it?_

 “I’ll look at you then!” Akira suddenly shouted, she pulled him forward suddenly and wrapped her arms around him in some clumsy kind of hug. In the other room, Banjou heard the sudden commotion and asked what was wrong. Seidou realized with a stab, that Banjou probably assumed he was hurting her. He was the unstable owl after all. “If that’s all you need, then I’ll keep looking at you. Please don’t run off to die again, like Amon did.”

 _Amon._ He realized with a stab of pain. _Maybe you wouldn’t be happy if he were here, maybe you’d cling onto him in the exact same way._ “Ma-Akira, I want that more than anything, but I don’t want to be your second choice. You won’t move on right? As long as you can find somebody else to cling to.”

He pushed Akira off of him with a burst of ghoul strength. She fell back into the bed just as Banjou arrived into the room. “Calm your tits, I didn’t do anything.” He muttered as he turned around, this time for real.

As he was leaving, Furuta caught him at the door. “So what exactly do you intend to do next?” He was clearly interested.

Takizawa kept walking past him. He did not answer, because he had no intention of continuing to be a part of this narrative.

 

♔

  
Ah, but that left Furuta a problem. As Takizawa walked off, he no longer had a center for which all of these events could revolve around. His eyes looked back to the bedroom, and thought perhaps Akira could serve as one, but she would likely never leave that bedroom if she were given the choice.

 A main character who slept through the entire plot would be a boring main character. Still, somebody had to continue to flick marbles at these people, hoping eventually they would bump into one another and create something interesting. Otherwise they would just sit and wallow in their own problems all day long.

Furuta hated being bored. He would do anything to avoid feeling like he did in that basement once again. Even if that meant stepping on stage himself. Takizawa Seidou had failed to get Akira out of that room, and had given up on himself. He wondered who else could.

A simple plan formed in his head. He would go tell the manager what Takizawa had done, and how it had hurt Akira. Touka in all of her compassion, would see Akira’s bleeding wound and feel the need to heal it. In her bluntness though, she would just kick Akira out of that room, rather than stepping lightly around her like all of the men in her life seemed keen on doing.

What a great scenario, it was brilliant, brilliant, brilliant! Perhaps he was not an author, but he could be a brilliant director if he wanted to be, yelling at his castmates when they got the character they were supposed to be acting as wrong.

So he appeared in front of Touka with a concerned face just as he had planned, and wrung his hands, saying about how much worse Akira looked now. He said he had tried to stop it, though it was debatable whether or not Touka believed him.

She still left that cafe with a determined look in her eyes. “You’ve healed, haven’t you? Can we talk for a little, Akira Mado?”

♔

  
Scratch that, he was a terrible director. When he saw Touka push Akira into a hug with Hinami, he knew he had let things go terribly off script.

“Boo! How cliche! Where’s my conflict, where’s my pathos!” He said, from the park bench he had been sitting on. He picked up a kernel of popcorn, and threw it so that it bounced off of the back of Akira’s head. Both girls separated, and looked back to Furuta looking confused. “You couldn’t even hug Ayato earlier but you’ll hug her instead? Really Hinami, you have such poor taste.”

Touka, who had been watching through one eye grit her teeth in annoyance. “Where the hell did you come from? And why do you have popcorn, you can’t even eat it!”

Furuta picked up another kernel and stuffed it into his mouth. He swallowed the foul tasting bulb of awfulness quickly, and then smiled back at Touka. “A true artist suffers for their art.”

Touka of course, no matter how clever his line really was had no patience for him at all, and she closed the distance between them, slamming her foot hard onto the bench on the other side of where he was sitting. “You said you just wanted to watch. I thought you might actually learn something if you kept watching. That you might care.”

“I do care, that’s precisely why I interrupted. Don’t you think it’s the right of an audience to boo and throw things when there’s a bad show being performed in front of them.” He blinked, unfazed by the sudden closeness of Touka, or the threat implicit with that closeness.

His favorite kind of woman was a black widow after all, both beautiful and deadly. You got no points at all for guessing who inspired that taste within him.

“In all of your eagerness to reconcile, my dear Touka, you’ve forgotten that you weren’t the one who did anything wrong. You were right earlier, when you said the world doesn’t revolve around Seidou, but it doesn’t revolve around Akira either.”

Touka looked at him, with one confused eye. “What are you saying, but I’m the one who killed her father.”

Furuta did not look back at her, but rather to Hinami. “Then why don't you hug her then? Oy! Hinami, how did it feel hugging her? Hugging the woman who swung around your parents’ corpses like they were toys?”

Touka leaned even closer now, putting a hand on his shoulder and tightening it to threaten him. “Don’t drag Hinami into this, she never once begrudged him…”

“It felt like…” Hinami finally spoke up for herself. “Something scraping against my skin, my skin crawling. I hated it, but I was trying to keep quiet, Touka, so I could be strong and forgive her like you, I’m sorry.”

Akira stopped and stared at her own hands for a moment. She muttered something about disgust, and then ran off.

Touka backed away from him, letting go. “Hinami…” She muttered under her breath, concern filling her voice. The emotion she was holding back in her voice almost made Furuta regret it. Almost. _I’m taking a red pen to your scenario, dear Touka. I hope in the end you’ll like my revisions._

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry big sister!” Hinami’s eyes became foggy once more. It seemed try as she might to be strong, she still could not help but crying. The only thing she could do to hide her tears now was to run away so she did just that. Now that was two that ran off.

And then there were two.

Touka immediately moved to run after her, but this time it was Furuta who caught her by a hand to the shoulder. “The hell are you thinking?” She growled back at him.

“Do you really see her as a younger sister? Odd, because this conversation wasn’t about Hinami at all wasn’t it. You’ve been thinking about your father a lot lately, huh?” He leaned forward and whispered it into her ear, nearly hissing. _“If you truly do think of her as family at all, then don’t use her to relieve your own emotions. If they find a use for you, they’re not family. Trust me, I’m talking from experience.”_

The situation had gone exactly as he had planned, but Furuta the clown was not smiling. In fact he had shown her quite a scary face right now. He didn’t mean to. Yet, it left Touka silent and staring at him all the same.

She looked transfixed. “Oh, stop staring. I’m going to blush.” He muttered awkwardly.

“The hell were you thinking Touka!” Ayato said, crawling out of the slide. Furuta had told him to hide there earlier, another surprise twist he set up for this scene. In fact, he intended Ayato to be the one to stop Touka from going after Hinami.

His action back there, was just a bit of improv. He should have known better.

And then there were three.

“What were you saying about pops? He killed investigators? Other ghouls? When the hell did you find this out! I always thought he had been taken away from us because he was trying to live in peace.” Ayato, of course had no sense of personal space and immediately accosted his sister, interrupting whatever moment there was between Furuta and her.

“Ayato, it was a long time ago, I was your older sister back then alright and you were just a kid,” Touka, barely phased by her brother shouting loud enough to spit in her face. She was at least used to that.

“I thought I’d grown up enough for you already, when were you going to tell me? Do you know how I felt, all that time... what the hell, Touka!”

Furuta had been on the receiving end of Ayato’s spittle too. He blinked, and then dragged a gloved hand across his eyes to wipe them off. “Well, this seems like a family issue. I’d hate to interrupt.”

Furuta took that opportunity to jog off too. Touka called off after him, something that rhymed with ‘dastard’, but he didn’t turn his head.

And then there was one.

Well, there could have been. It would have been really easy to use this chaos to escape Goat permanently, really, they could all fall apart so easily. Yet, the direction he was running was not some part of the city he could disappear into.

It seemed his destination had already been set.

 

♔

 

“The hell did you do to Mado, she was crying!” Seidou said, spitting in his face once more as he throttled Furuta. It seemed he had chosen a troublesome path, filled with many angry love interests.

“So you were still watching, watching with your owl eyes. That’s a little bit stalkery you know.”

“Don’t equate me with the likes of you,” Seidou said with another shake, “I just… I had a feeling she’d end up here.”

Furuta looked out to see a field of short grass. In the background, there was a barren looking tree. He thought it was an appropriate look, for a cemetery and all. Graves lined the horizon spaced evenly apart, with only nameplates marking them different. In front of one of them, a bouquet of flowers that looked about a month old and a crying woman.

“Sharp instincts Seidou, with these people it always seems to begin and end with daddy, doesn’t it?”

“How the hell should I know, I killed my parents.”

“Ooh, me too. We have so much in common-ack!Ack!Hack!” Seidou started to choke Furuta out of annoyance, but he stopped when he heard another rustle of commotion that was not the two of them.

Furuta’s eyes slid over, and he saw none other than Fueguchi Hinami appear. The wind seemed to change directions, it blew the folds of her skirt slightly. Furuta sighed, some people really were just too selfless.

“Have you come to tell me you hate me?” Akira said, curled up and holding her own knees in front of the grave without bothering to look up.

Hinami shook her head. “I never hated you.” She walked up to the grave, and squatted down to be closer to Akira. “If anything I was jealous. You know what I wish... I wish I could mourn my parents at a grave like this."

Akira looked away. “I work in manufacturing quinques, I’m already well aware of how they’re made. You’re not going to get me with that sob story. My father left both of your parents to me as his precious heirlooms.”

Hinami sighed. “That's all he gave you, huh?”

She was done lowering herself to Akira’s level. Hinami stood up once more. Her hands which had been pulling at her skirt nervously up until this point, released the tension within them. She took a deep breath. The place which Hinami stood was heavy with clover. As she readjusted her footing, she stepped over it.

Clover's seemed to be falling at her feet. How quaint, Furuta thought. 

"My mother, she told me to live. Okay? That's what I need to remember." It was at that moment, Furuta realized that she was no longer talking to Akira. Akira did not seem to have quite caught up though. 

Before Akira could say anything, the sound of another rushing to the scene interrupted them. With heavy breaths, Ayato straightened himself up. “Hinami! Are you okay?”

“Oh, I’m fine. Ah! Ayato! What about you, you’ve got a black eye!” Hinami clapped her hands over her mouth in surprise.

Ayato scratched the back of his head boyishly. “Oh, yeah this. Sorry, Sis and I had it out.”

Hinami’s face suddenly became cross. “That’s no good Ayato, siblings shouldn’t fight.”

“Yeah, yeah whatever, you and Touka can have your lovey dovey shit but I think it’s more natural for siblings to fight, and cry, and whatever. Of course I wasn’t crying, shut up.” Ayato tried to turn around, and suddenly found himself stumbling.

Hinami waked up next to him, offering a shoulder. “Want to walk home with me, Ayato?”

Ayato put his arm around her shoulder then, letting her support him. “Well, I suppose I can make sure you walk home safe.”

As they walked off, Furuta smiled. “See, you put your arms around her that time.” Only to be shaken by Seidou once more.

“Oi! Don’t forget about me, clown!”

“I haven’t,” Furuta’s eyes rolled towards Akira. “Just what are you going to do here? I bet if you walked up to her right now, and threw your arms around her, she would never let go of you.”

Seidou’s face, all of the trauma and shock seemed to wash out of it, and for a split second he looked innocent and confused. Oh Seidou, Furuta thought, you’re capable of being quite cute sometimes yourself. “It wouldn’t be me she was holding onto.”

“Oh my, what a surprise. Somebody in Goat has actually learned something.” Furuta felt Seidou’s fingers slacken on his neck. The two of them together, looked at Akira as she cried in front of Mado’s grave. “Amon wasn’t the one you were being compared to, he never was. You look a lot like Mado though, white hair, crazy eyes, are you okay with being a replacement?”

Seidou paused. His eyes were so clear, that Furuta could see the whole reflection of the sky in them. Yet, slowly they began to fog too. Furuta wondered how long the ghoul had gone without crying. He must have ran out of tears while screaming as Kanou dragged that saw through him. “I’m owl, damnit!” Seidou said with a flick of his head, tears and spittle flying in the air in Furuta’s direction. Really, he was going to need a shower after this was all over.

He crumpled over. “I didn’t… I didn’t want… I wanted to live for her sake.” Normally, Furuta would laugh at such a display but it felt oddly genuine.

Furuta put a hand around Seidou’s white feather antannae and yanked him back up. “That’s noble of you, but the only person you can live for is yourself. Trust me, I’ve been down that road. It’s physically impossible just to be happy, by imagining somebody else is happy, no matter how much you love that person.”

He thought of a lone boy, sitting in a field of flowers at night. One who suddenly snapped his head around because he thought he heard a familiar sound of laughter, only to realize it was the wind. The empty and quiet place became filled with the sound of his crying.

“No matter how much…” Furuta repeated, sounding a bit more distant this time.

Tears in his eyes still, Seidou looked at the distant figure of Akira. At least they had been able to look at each other for one moment. “Tell her, I’m sorry she didn’t wake up to the happiness I wanted for her.”

“Yeah, sure. I’ll tell her something like that.”

Takizawa Seidou, turned around and left once more.

Furuta, of course, had no intention of telling her something that corny, or even that nice. “Associate Special Class, do you want my advice?” He said, in a chipper tone of voice approaching her from behind.

“Not really, Former Rank 1 Furuta.” Akira Mado hugged her knees tighter and buried her head within them.

“Oh, well that was rhetorical. I thought you were too sad for words at the moment. Well, it’s good advice so I’m going to give it anyway.” He held two fingers of his red gloved hand in a V sign in the air. “Furuta’s special advice number two, if your father is bothering you too much. Kill him.”

Akira gave him no response.

“Well, I guess yours is already dead, so you’ll have to kill him symbolically or something.”

“It’s rude to speak ill of the dead, young Sou-chan.”

A voice spoke up to interrupt both of them. Akira and Furuta, both slowly scanned their eyes across the horizon, until an old man in a priest’s garb approached them. Furuta stepped in front of Akira. “Well this is useless to say because he could easily kill us both, but stay behind me, Associate Special Class.”

Donato closed his eyes, and shook his head slowly. A single chuckle escaped from his lips. “There’s no need, I’m not rude like you Sou, I wouldn’t cause a fuss on god’s property.”

“Ah, that’s nice, what did you come here for then, Dona-chan?” The tension seemed to disappear from Furuta’s body at once, but it was only his best effort. If Akira watched him closely, she could see his hands shaking underneath those red gloves.

“I thought if I found this woman, I might find Koutarou attached to her hip. It seems that’s not the case though.” He bowed his head slightly, “I hope you’ll pardon me for the interruption.”

Akira had just now, finally reached the point of being too shocked for words. She was stronger than Furuta thought. “You- you’re- Amon’s…”

“Koutarou’s father, yes. Though, he quite hates me. It’s a tricky thing being a parent. I tried to turn him into a ghoul, just like your father raised you to be a ghoul investigator. I thought it was in his best interest, but I’m sure Sou-chan thinks differently." Dontato chuckled under his breath. 

Suddenly Furuta felt indignant. Before he could say anything though, Donato spoke up again. "You shouldn’t listen to him too faithfully, he’s got a black and white view of things, and he’s never been a father himself.”

Donato turned around and left, as swiftly and suddenly as he came. Furuta was sure, that the world had run out of surprises for today. He put his hands in his pockets, and looked down at Akira. “Well, shall we go home?”

“That old man just told me not to listen to you.”

“Awe, what? He eats children, he’s way less trustworthy than I am.”

Akira Mado sighed. “How many ghouls are going to try to give me advice today?” She started to uncurl herself from the ball she had rolled herself into, like some kind of pill bug. No wonder Kaneki looked to her as such a mother figure.

“Well you’re lucky, they could have just eaten you, instead they all tried to give you half assed therapy. That’s the kind of place :Re is, that’s where you’ve ended up. I’d count my blessings if I were you.”

“I suppose so…” Akira said, as she stood up fully. She raised her foot, but not to walk away. She slammed it down hard on the bouquet that had been left to her, taking a day’s worth of frustration out on it as she stomped on it again and again, before finally dragging it’s torn pieces across the stone. “Alright, now I’m ready to go home.”

How strange.

He had only called :Re home on accident but now it seemed such an agreeable word to call it.

♔

Sometime later, the dust settled, and things returned back to a relative normal. Dostoyevsky once said, “Man is a creature that can get accustomed to anything, and I think that is the best definition of him.” Furuta was sure that phrase applied to ghouls as well.

The entire morning though, Touka had quietly been staring at him with her one eye. Furuta supposed that she was the only one he had left things unsettled with. Only when the bell rang to announce another customer did something break their silence.

“Greetings, associate special class!” Furuta said in a cheerful voice, greeting the customer just as Touka told him too.

“One coffee, black please,” Akira said, as she sat and looked down a particularly interesting looking smudge on the counter. After her coffee was served she piped up with another question. “Do you know where Seidou went?”

“The king sent him and Kurona on a secret mission together, something about Kanou.”

Akira sighed. “I suppose then, I should make myself useful until he comes back.”

Odd, for a woman who lost so much, the thought did not even occur to her that he might die and never see her again. People found hope in the strangest places, Furuta had no idea what to make of it.

As he went to the backroom to fetch some more filters, he noticed Touka there, staring out the door. “See there’s no need to pout, all’s well that ends well.”

Touka did not turn, her eyes focused on the coffee cup Akira held. “Is that the one Seidou dropped earlier?”

“Yes, I just glued it back together. If we threw out all of the broken coffee cups, with Roma here this place would be out of business in a week.”

“Where is Roma anyway, she’s called in sick two days in a row. I’d fire her if we literally didn’t have any other employees right now.”

“Off looking for Rio-san, or maybe stalking your king, how should I know. I’m not her keeper.” Furuta shrugged. He seemed flippant but, it was nice to banter back and forth like this. It was the one thing he was afraid he would lose, when he went recklessly pushing buttons like that.

Before he could walk away though, Touka suddenly reached out and grabbed him by the back of the tie. She yanked him once again down to her level. Furuta made a pathetic face and whined. “Why do people keep manhandling me by the neck? Should I start wearing a collar around you ghouls from now on?”

Touka looked at him straight on. Oh, she was looking at him with two eyes now. “Even if everything worked out this time, I’m going to watch you closer from now on. Don’t think you can just play with people like they’re toys.”

Oh, that was a challenge. Furuta smiled. “But why should I stop? It’s so fun.”

“I’ll stop you.” Touka said confidently.

“How, are you going to punish me? You should know I like being punished by beautiful-” Furuta was interrupted by another yank of his tie one that curved his face just enough that Touka could easily lean up to the side of his face and plant a kiss there.

None of that would have prevented Furuta from continuing to make smart remarks, except for the fact that the instant her lips touched against him his mind went blank.

 _Girl._  
_A girl just kissed me._

Touka let go of him then. She walked off and left him alone.  
Furuta reached up and curled his fingers around the area on his cheek still warm from Touka’s lips.

Oh, so she had figured out the perfect way to hurt him.

A person who was conditioned to deal with pain all of his life, had no defense against kindness.

Blossoming from the point of her kiss, as if he had been bitten, or it was some kind of rash, Furuta’s entire face turned bright red. His legs could no longer support himself, so he leaned against the wall.

There was only one thing on his mind.

_Girl.  
No-her name is Touka. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next week we're taking a vacation to Rio.


	9. Caged Bird

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yes, the Touka and Ayato conversation I skipped last chapter gets covered in this chapter.

He asked her if they could go a walk together. There was no specific destination, just that it would be the two of them alone.

She said yes. She was oblivious.

It was nice though, the entire walk there. The boy next to her was nervous, and fidgeted as he stepped but even walking ahead of her, he would constantly look back. As if he might blink and she would disappear.

It was silly, childish even, but she liked the feeling of being looked at. She liked that when she spoke up, he would look back at her as if he was hanging every word. This boy rarely spoke, but he was a good listener she knew that.

The breeze blew around them. She saw Sakura petals, blowing in the breeze, dotting the background of her vision with small traces of pink. Wasn’t it a little bit early for that, she thought? Then again, she had been losing track of time lately.

Ever since he left.

Her stomach growled. Really, way to ruin the moment. She put a hand on it, trying to keep the sick feelings at bay. Later she would need to vomit everything out. She hoped she could do it in some far secluded corner where no one would see.

The boy watching her though, of course he noticed. He was always watching her, he always noticed things. That’s because he was studying under her to learn to be a proper waiter at Anteiku she told herself.

“That human came by the cafe today. She seemed nice.” He said. He was trying to avoid mentioning it directly too. Not only observant, he was also sensitive

“Yoriko, you mean. She wanted me to try some new dish she made.”

He was obviously worried the moment he realized what it meant. His hands flitted about her like he wanted to touch her, but at the same time she was too delicate to touch. No, perhaps he was the delicate one. “I’m sure she’d understand… you know… she wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself if she’s your friend.”

He always managed to say things in such a clear way. Perhaps because he was so sensitive, he picked up on things eaiser. It was comforting to hear that from him, but Touka knew she didn’t deserve that comfort. “It’s not that. If I were a human, it would be so easy. I could tell Yoriko what I really thought of her food. Even if it tasted terrible, I would tell her straight to her face. We could walk from home and school together, and take pictures in photo booths.”

Her hands reached for her skirt and tightened around them. “It’s my fault. It’s because I was born a ghoul. If I was human I could…” Her single eye dropped onto the ground. “I just feel guilty about it all…”

There was no one specific thing. All of it. Everything she did around Yoriko was a lie. The only thing she could do to punish herself for, the only think she could think of, was to shove that slop down her mouth, and feel the slime trickle down her throat and fall like acid into her stomach. Just like all of those times Arata forced her to eat human food with the neighbors when they were young.

It was painful. Even now her stomach hurt, but she was used to it.

“... Touka!” Rio said suddenly, raising his voice.

It caught even Touka by surprise. She’d never seen him be that loud. The quiet boy walking in front of her, as he turned around to face her she looked at him with both eyes.

“?”

“I like you… Touka…”

She tilted her head. “Eh?” He really needed to yell that loudly to say something like that.

He should have shut up then, but he kept going. “You are very sweet, and a great worker, and that’s why Touka… I...I, Touka… I love you.”

Touka’s eyes widened so far she thought they might rack. Why suddenly, why now was he saying all this?

The sweet boy, who always paid attention to her at the cafe. Who admired her, and tried his best to be like her. Who never once lost patience with her rude attitude.

Why did he have to come after Kaneki had already left?

Kaneki…

Thinking of him right now, Rio would surely hate her if he ever found out. Even though she had just been told, in list form, all of the reasons why he loved her, Touka could just not comperehend the feelings.

They were too simple, too sweet. She was a ghoul. Undeserving of Yoriko, and underserving of Rio. To her love was something tied up in lies, knotted in her chest, it was a ring with two names carved into it that she held between her fingers, and whispered Kaneki’s name instead.

It was the words.

“Don’t leave me alone.”

“I won’t.”

Then the breaking of that promise five minutes later.

Whatever it was, it was not the way Rio looked at Touka, where she seemed to reflect back in his eyes and take up all of them.

“Oh,” She finally said after staring at him in silence for so long. As if it had just now registered. “I’m sorry, I cannot reciprocate that feeling. I really am sorry.” She shoved her head down. She had never been polite yet somehow she found herself bowing.

“...” Rio said nothing.

She should try to explain it again. If she explained it the right way, maybe it wouldn’t hurt him as much. Maybe she would not hurt him. She tried to open her mouth, and say everything, about Kaneki, about Yoriko, about Arata and Hikari, but the words did not come at all. She just repeated again. “I do not have those feelings towards you, RIo. I’m so sorry. I truly am sorry.”

In front of her, Rio started to shake. She wondered for a moment what he had been anticipating in her rejection.

“L-let’s go home.” She said suddenly, reaching out for his shaking hand.

Rio pulled away from her. She looked at her empty hand for a moment confused, but decided it was probably his right to do so. “Aren’t you going to come?” She still asked again.

He stared at her in silence.

“I want to stay for a little longer.” He finally said.

Touka nodded.

She watched him for a little while afterwards though from a distance. He walked up to a telephone pole, and leaned his head against it.

She kept looking back, as he did for her. Again and again, but he still did not follow.

It was what she deserved, she supposed.

She tried to find the reason she said no, but the feelings tangled further around her heart. When she was far enough from Rio that she was sure he would not hear, she finally spoke.

“Kaneki’s not even here, you idiot.”

There was no response in the empty air around her. Rio still had not come back. “Rio, I’m sorry, why did I… why…”

 

♔

Touka found herself drifting off and thinking about irrelevant things, as the Goat meeting droned on in front of her. Perhaps because it was the way Kaneki looked, his hair pure white again. While she stared at him from behind, he looked indistinguishable from that boy a long time ago.

“The number of ghoul investigator’s isn’t thinning at all, even after conducting several pinpointed raids. They might be relying on JSDF, and policemen as reinforcements, but that doesn’t explain their numbers.”

Every once in awhile, parts of the meeting would filter past her. Mostly when it was Kaneki speaking up. There was something different about his voice, he seemed more decisive than before. No, it didn’t seem like Kaneki was the one speaking.

“It was the same back in Aogiri though, whoever we killed got replaced, even when we killed the replacement of the replacements,” Ayato said speaking up from the corner. He sat with his arms crossed. Hinami was on the table next to him, idly kicking her legs. She had not come to meetings before this point, but the two suddenly walked in together.

“You’re both right and wrong Ayato, this is worse than Aogiri. Aogiri was a problem so large they had to publically acknowledge a ghoul organization for once and issue warnings for them. For Goat though, Matsuri has declared open war against us.”

Ah, that was great. A war. That was exactly what she wanted Kaneki to throw himself into when he came back.

“Do you really want him back into the ghoul world? To turn him into a ghoul to get killed by doves?”

She said that at the time, she meant it.

“I think it’s fine if Kaneki doesn’t come back. It’s better that way... “

She meant it, maybe.

“Kaneki, Kaneki… I’ll see you later okay?”

Yet at the time, she didn’t get angry at him for remembering. She didn’t think it would be worse now, that he was leaving his home for Hinami and her sake. She was happy.

Perhaps this was her punishment for that transgression, the stepping back of her own words. Maybe it really would have been better if you never came back.

Even after waiting for him all this time, when he finally was around her why did she have to feel this way?

Her question went unanswered as suddenly Kaneki spoke up again. “Cutting off the heads isn’t helping, no matter what we do, no matter how many investigators we kill, we as ghouls are always going to be outnumbered by them. The one eyed king of old had a similar opportunity to us, and he fought tooth and nail with a CCG weakened entirely by the war, with an army of ghouls that was supposedly much larger than ours and even he failed to push them to a breaking point. More investigators arrived dressed in black, in so many numbers that they drove them back underground. What we’re fighting right now is V’s puppets, if they lose some, they’ll just find more. Replacements of replacements, like you said Ayato.” Kaneki stopped and pressed a hand against his chin to think.

Ayato seemed to beam with Kaneki’s acknowledgement. Touka wondered if she should feel jealous of her own brother, that Kaneki seemed to acknowledge him lately more than her. Of course a child like Ayato would approve of Kaneki’s decision to target investigators. He was just like her in the past, when she donned the rabbit mask and assumed Hinami’s pursuers would simply go away if she just killed all of them.

Kaneki was right in one regard. There would always be more doves. You could not simply kill them all. Maybe he was close to realizing, maybe he would stop.

“What we need to do, is to destroy the wicked root. The ones pulling the strings. Only then can we bring a permanent end to this conflict. They’re in some place we can’t reach though so how… the garden and the quinques… we should start making plans to investigate the two great innovations the Washuu gave to the CCG to fight against ghouls. Kurona, I want you to investigate what V was trading through your father’s company sphinx when they used it as a shell company. Seidou, you go with her as protection. Take and Uta, you two go along with them. If you finally find time to inform Ui-senpai about the garden, I want him to go with you as backup.”

Take in the corner of the room silently nodded his head. “It’s not like I was avoiding telling him…He only needed to know that Arima fought on the side of ghouls this whole time.”

“You two are friends right, there’s no need to keep secrets between friends,” Kaneki said, a smile on his face again, one that had been completely serious and commanding a moment ago.

“I wonder where Ui boy went anyway, it’s a shame he can’t hear you two talking about him like this.” Uta said with his hands folded in front of his face.

“He and Tsukiyama made a personal request to me, they’re hunting down the remaining investigators who led the Rose Raid.”

You led that raid too, didn’t you Sasaki?

Touka thought, but did not speak up.

“Feh! I just got back. Really, you’re working me to the bone, O king of the Sheep,” Takizawa complained from the corner.

“How much was saving Akira Mado’s life worth to you? That’s how much work you owe me in return. If she’s worthless to you, you’re free to leave anytime you want.” Kaneki said back coldly.

Isn’t that the women you call your mother?  
She was important to you.  
Yet you can set a value to her and use her as a bargaining chip.

Nervously, Takizawa bit upon one of his fingers. “Well, I guess I got nothing better to do anyway. If I screw it up though, it’s your fault for putting your trust in a loose canon like me.”

Kurona behind him gave him the stink eye. “Hey you’re supposed to be my escort, don’t talk about failing so casually. You’ll drag me down with you.”

Kaneki’s voice rose above the mewling sheep once more. “If that’s settled then, I have one more task. Ayato you’re going to lead this one, you can pick whoever you want to follow. I want an investigation of the Quinque labs, Akira Mado should be a good source of information for this. If we can stop their means of mass producing quinques they’d be at a disadvantage. It’s a better strategy at least then just breaking them like idiots when they can be easily repaired or replaced. Just like you did with Hinami’s breakout, do you think you can organize this?”

Ayato nodded his head. Even though he still looked rough around the edges, somehow he put his hand to his chest and bowed down. “Yes, my king! Just tell me what you want to find, and I’ll sniff it down for you and bite it through the neck.” He looked for a moment like a boy with actual manners, somebody had tamed him.

He was no longer a wild dog, but now he had become a dog of the king. Touka wondered if that was a positive transformation.

Ayato turned around on his heels, shoved his hands in the pocket of his coat and started to leave. Hinami happily kicked her feet off one more time and jumped off the desk to follow him.

“Hey, I’m coming along right?” Hinami asked.

“Who said you could?” Ayato barked at her.

“Are you really going to tell me I can’t.” This statement brought pause in Ayato, and he looked away and scratched at the back of his neck. Even Hinami was fighting in Goat now.

So how come only her… “Ayato! I want to come too.” Touka called out suddenly. The rest had filed out, so that left only Ayato, Kaneki, Hinami and herself.

Ayato paused for a moment, looking at her. His finger went to scratch under his eye. “Don’t you think that’s too dangerous Sis? You’re our communications expert, if you were captured we wouldn’t be able to rendezvous as :Re anymore.”

Kaneki reached out to her. She felt a gloved hand touch her shoulder. “Touka, you’re protecting our home. This place :Re is the place everybody can come back to, don’t you think that’s an important job too?”

That’s the reason I made this place but… Did I really think I would just be sitting here forever. “Yeah…” She said softly.

“Besides Sis, sitting home and waiting is what you’re best at.” Ayato sniped at her before turning around to leave.

Hinami flicked him on one of his ears. “Stop looking for fights, maybe that’s what your best at… huh? Being a… fight person.”

Bless Hinami’s little heart, she seemed to be trying at least. Kaneki sat back down and asked her for a coffee. She wondered why he was lingering to talk when he always seemed so busy nowadays. When he drank from the cup, he let out a relieved sigh. Touka hoped just then, that the sky he was carrying on his shoulders could rest just a little bit.

She knew that Kaneki’s favorite books were tragedies, but one of these days she wanted him to look up from his books and realize the sky next to a tragedy was a clear blue. That was her sincere desire. The thought of it still warmed her even now when she felt cold.

“I like it when you make coffee for me Touka, it tastes just like Anteiku’s blend,” Kaneki said, holding the cup between his two hands. She hoped that it would reach him, it would warm him too.

I like making coffee for you. She wanted to say, but she couldn’t. “Well, I’m the only one around here who actually does any work. Furuta, why are you on the phone during working hours!?”

“What, it’s not like I’m missing much, just the usual will they or won’t they garbage between you two,” Furuta said rather crassly, throwing a stone to shatter the tension between them in that moment. He had been in the back room, but as she called him, still holding the phone he poked his head out to speak with her. “There’s no need for this indirect tsun act Touka, if you missed me you could have just said so.”

“The what now? Stop referring to people as if they’re fictional characters. I only miss you because every time I turn my head around you start causing trouble, Furuta!”

“Are you two on a first name basis now?” Kaneki said, suddenly feeling awkward caught between them. He put his coffee cup back down and stared into it.

“Please, he has too many names.” Touka said, turning her head away.

“It’s nothing special, Touka is just Touka to me.” He too looked away, but Furuta seemed to be sticking his lip out and pouting in an exaggerated manner. “S’ides, you’re giving me too little credit. I’m not just some one trick pony. This time I was trying to sort out trouble.”

The phone that was still hanging in his hand, started to make noise again like some small dog was yipping at the other end. Furuta returned it to his ear, “Hmmm, I’m not sure. Let me ask. Hey, Touka what do you think Roma should do?”

“Get back here already, this is the third shift she’s missed,” Touka said returning her hands to her hips.

“Yeah, she said come back and make it on time to work no matter what, or else you’ll be executed, iron woman style! That’s our beautiful and deadly boss for you.” Furuta said, and then hung up the phone.

Touka tilted her head. “I don’t think I like this character you’ve drawn of me.” Just then, there was a loud clanging in the back of the cafe. “Roma, I’ll kill her.” Touka said with the stomp of her foot. Furuta giggled, but his eyes lingered on her as she walked by him.

What Touka saw when she opened the backdoor was not a broken dish as she though, but rather an explosion of kagune moving past her eyes. She tilted her head back just in time to avoid it. Roma had another kagune wrapped around her, and she was thrown through the doorway and over the counter. She landed on a table that Touka had yet to clean up, knocking all the dishes onto the floor.

“Waaaaaaah! Sou-chan! Shiko shiko is being a real big bully! Knocking me around like that, when I’m just a girl!” She did not seem phased at all, and rather sat back up so Furuta could see her start to cry.

Furuta plucked a handkerchief from the pocket of his apron, and dabbled her face with it. “Poor, poor, Roma, kids these days have no respect for their elders.”

Suddenly, she stopped her show of crying and elbowed him straight in the gut.

“Oy you two! Fantastic comedy duo, but what the hell is that thing? Why’d you bring it here.” Touka said as he jumped over the bar to retreat as well.

 

Kaneki’s fingers tensed so suddenly that Furuta could hear the sound of a knuckle cracking. Oh, that old gem was back again. “You’re really going to try this, while Touka is right here…” There was obvious anger in his voice.

“It was your request dear king. You wanted me to find the last member of the clowns so here he is, he always got along with Roma so well so I sent her after him.”

Roma popped up again next to Furuta. “He’s a plucky young lad just like me.”

What finally wandered in through the doors however, was not a plucky young lad at all, but rather a shambling man, wearing a striped shirt, and hiding his face under half of another face that looked like it was torn off of a person. “Left. Right. Left. Right. Lost, don’t know where I am. Existentially, even! So empty inside! Fill me up, I’m hungry.”

He tilted backwards and unleashed another barrage of kagune. This time it grew from the base of his spine, he jumped onto the counter and lashed down with his kagune destroying two tables that were in his way. Kaneki sat completely still, not moving from his spot but the force of the wind pushed the coffee cup out of his hand and caused it to shatter on the counter.

“My cafe!” Touka cried out, as her eyes snapped black.

Kaneki stood up, and suddenly was next to her with impressive speed, he raised a hand in front of her. “Don’t, just stay behind me Touka.” When it whipped at the both of them, Kaneki drew out his Rinkaku and tore straight through it, causing the large bikaku tail to disintegrate behind them.

“That’s not a good idea, Shiko’s a sensitive type. If you strike at him, he’ll just lash out even more.” Furuta said. Helpfully a moment right after kaneki’s kagune had sliced at Rio’s chest.

He staggered backwards, covering his chest with both arms. “My boobies, I’m all exposed now. DON’T LOOK!” From that, a different kind of kagune, one on his back burst out and exploded, causing Kagune shards to go in every direction. Furuta and Roma, at the same time ducked under tables, while Kaneki tackled Touka over to keep her out of harm’s wait.

“Ugh! Watch it.” She said as she clamored to the floor.

From across the room Roma called out. “Be nice to him, he’s just a little baby.”

“How many types of kagune does he even have?” Kaneki called out.

“All four!” Furuta said.

“He’s a special boy!” Roma called out after him.

“We can’t just brute force this one then, we need a strategy,” Kaneki said, looking to the two clowns that were now his accomplices.

“If you whisper his name, he usually calms down.”

 

“What, Shikorae?”

“That’s an alias, his real name.”

Shikorae jumped suddenly and landed between them. Finally figuring out they all had been hiding under tables. His body contorted like some kind of posssessed child in an exorcism movie.

“I’ll distract him then, you whisper his name into his ear.” Kaneki said, standing up once more. Furuta and Roma followed him in turn.

“Hey, what about me?” Touka asked. Her voice was lost in the sudden explosion of kagune that came from Shikorae, this time Rinkaku just like Kaneki’s but he seemed to overproduce, it spiraled in every direction, and even knotted behind him. The ends were especially twisted and pointed, like an insect’s stinger.

Kaneki met with his own, trying to draw the both of them to a stalemate rather than win. Furuta dashed forward and dove underneath the bulk of the kagune, but just then another bikaku tail looking much like a scorpion’s pierced straight forward and threw him backwards. “Ow! Why’s it always gotta be through my stomach, I just ate.”

Roma laughed at him while he fell. It seemed she wasn’t going to be helpful after all.

Touka looked at Furuta fall backwards though, and the red stain begin to form in his shirt, and before she even realized why she rushed forward. She let out a flurry of Ukaku, explodnig them on impact to make an opening and then jumped over him, grabbing him by the neck using her elbow to catch him at last minute. She held him in a headlock there, calling back to Furuta.

“Touka, wait! That’s dangerous,” Kaneki called out.

“Whatever! I’ve got him, so what’s his real name?”

Furuta sat straight up, like he had never been harmed. “Oh, it’s Rio.”

“Rio?”

Touka felt her whole body stagger suddenly. Her grip loosened leaving an opening, but Rio was close enough now to see her face. His mask fell off, and she recognized the same blank eyes that used to stare at her all that time ago.

“Touka?”

Rio said to her, right before losing consciousness and collapsing in her arms. Touka simply held his body limp in her arms, not even noticing the mass of kagune that had been around him dissolving into a blood like mist. It wetted her clothes, and painted them a shade of red.

“That’s Rio…” Kaneki said from behind her.

He didn’t seem to comprehend it either. Had he gotten to know Rio? Had he met the boy? He wasn’t at the cafe at the time. He didn’t understand Rio like she did.

Just then, once again her own past words occured to her. As she looked at Rio’s body, blackened and stained with blood, twisted up as it was.

“Why did you have to change?”

♔

The dust settled in the cafe. Looking at the unconscious Rio and the state he had fallen too, Kaneki excused himself, his eyes and hands both trembling. Touka wanted to follow him in that moment, but that meant leaving Rio alone, and more importantly that meant leaving the cafe alone with two clowns.

“I found some dishes that weren’t broken!” Roma announced from the back room, walking forward and carrying them in a pile only to slip on some debris from a table that was still on the floor and throw them all up into the air. “Waaaaaaah!”

“Roma, I don’t think Touka is appreciating the slapstick act right now,” Furuta said while holding a broom. He walked over and offered his free hand to help her up.

“That wasn’t an act. My poor cute little bottom,” Roma said while being hoisted up and rubbing it.

“My poor cafe,” Touka sighed, surveying the wreckage.

Furuta appeared suddenly next to her, sweeping the ground around her. “Look at it this way, my cute little boss. There’s no structural damage, just a few broken tables. Order some more and it’ll all be good as new.”

“With what money? The only customers I get these days are dirt poor ghouls.” Touka sighed. She wondered why she was getting so worked up. It’s not like she meant to spend her life running this one small cafe. “How are you so chipper about everything anyway...You!” She suddenly grabbed him and wrenched him forward by his tie once more.

Furuta responded with a manly “Eeep!’ and dropped the broom he was holding onto, to raise both hands in the air as a proclamation of innocence. “That’s me… Mr. Good Guy Fun Times, here.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about Rio? Why did you just sit there and watch for so long,” She said, her lip drawing into a harsh line and words coming through gritted teeth underneath.

“Well, I’m a clown, it’s kinda my thing. Besides, aren’t you the one who told me not to meddle in things anymore?” Furuta said looking directly at her.

Touka loosened her fingers. She noticed that in all of the chaos his tie had becomes slightly undone, along with his collar and went to straighten it. “You always have to get the last word in on things, huh?” She said as her fingers went for that crumpled collar, and with a gentle pull on each side pulled it straight.

“Umm, Touka your fingers…” Furuta muttered.

“Choke him out, Touka!” Roma yelled from the background.

Touka sighed. “Please don’t tell me he’s like that because of you. I wouldn’t be able to be so nice to you anymore.” She immediately thought of Rize, and how kagune harvesting reduced her to her current state of madness.

“You call our interaction so far you being nice,” Furuta commented, only her to whip his head forward with his untied tie like a noose around his neck that she held both the ends of. “Ah! N-no, it wasn’t actually me. We found him like that. If anything Roma has been watching over him much nicer than Aogiri ever did.”

“It’s because I’m such a cute and motherly type.” Roma said, putting an arm around the shoulder of the resting Rio, and letting his head fall onto her bosom. Rio himself was tied up. Another straight jacket. Kaneki insisted on it before leaving. So he doesn’t hurt anyone else or himself, that was his reason.

Touka still could not believe that Rio would hurt someone. She finished retying the tie around Furuta’s neck, and tightened it up. She pressed a finger against her finished work. “If that is the truth… even if you don’t know how he got like that, there must be some way to rehabilitate him.”

“You’re such a mother hen. He destroys half of your cafe, and all you think about is saving him again .”

“If I’m a mother you should be a good boy from now on.”

 

“I will, I will.” Furuta parroted back at her.

She rolled her one eye and pushed him back… lightly. More playfully then her normal shoving had been. Her eye went to Rio instead, as she studied the difference in his body. His hair was longer, his stomach was exposed and both scars and muscles were carved into it. His eyelids even while unconscious were still slightly open kept that way by stitches. She saw similar markings around his mouth. Her hand went, and without thinking she clasped the side of his face. “Who did this to you, was it Aogiri?”

“It was a ghoul investigator, actually. Shocking I know, that noble ghoul investigators would kill ghouls.” Furuta walked over to where Shikorae’s mask had fallen off and picked it off the ground. “I think this was his face actually, so he looked like this.” He picked up the mask and held it in front of his face for a moment. It was a half mask so his smile could be seen underneath.

Touka tried to ignore it. “He knew my name. He still might be in there.” She tilted his sleeping face up to look towards her.

“Rio changed so totally, it’s like him and Shikorae are two different people. Maybe we can wake the old one up by jogging his memory,” Furuta suggested behind her. “Make things like they used to be and hope he resets.”

“You’ve let yourself go, Rio. You need a shower, and a shave for sure.” Touka said, letting go of his face suddenly. Behind her, Roma and Furuta laughed at her joke.

She had Roma hold him steady, as she with her own two hands tried to give him a haircut. It went fine until she got to the bangs. It was always the bangs. She pulled them tight over his forehead, but then snipped them too short. His once uneven and boyish set of bangs, now were cut too short and too straight. Her failure elicited the snickers of both Furuta and Roma behind her. At least she got his hair danglies back to their normal size, she thought holding the pair of scissors up. “Keep giggling you too, and you’ll be next.”

“No, not my part. I’ve kept this look since childhood.” Furuta said slapping his hands over the sides of his face.

“My cute little pineapple tufts, don’t touch them. It took forever to get my hair back to normal after prison.”

Touka sighed and looked to Rio’s outfit instead. “We should have some spare clothes in the back, but he still needs a shower. Furuta, you go do that.”

“I only want to be bathing with pretty young girls though.”

Touka groaned. “You don’t have to bathe with him, just hose him out back if you have to.” They didn’t have a shower here anyway. Maybe they could use the sink and the dishwasher… no a hose was the best option.

A few moments later, the unconscious Shikorae was returned to them, hair the size it had been when she left, stitches plucked out of his eyes, clean and smelling fresh (like dish soap) and wearing a waiter’s uniform from the cafe. Underneath a straight jacket, they had to put it back on him just in case their plan didn’t work up and he didn’t wake up as quiet and meek Rio, but rather loud and violent Shikorae.

“He sure slept through a lot,” Touka commented as she touched his face once more, pinching his cheek. When she pulled on his cheek hard enough, the drool that was being kept in his mouth fell out and started to dribble down his chin. She leaned in and whispered in his ear. “Wake up already, sleepyhead. Rio? Please?” She saw no change in his face. “......For me?”

Rio finally stirred. His eyelids fluttered open. For a moment she saw his normal gaze looking over her, his eyes a light red. They were a pretty color, almost like a flower petal. Beforehand she had not thought she would ever find any shade of red pretty, she had seen too much of it. “You… I like you… Touka…” The words dribbled out of his mouth, as his eyes tried to focus on her. Touka sharped in a suck breath.

Suddenly, his eyes snapped to black. She saw his veins surrounding his eyes begin to bulge underneath his skin. His kakugan looked different, bloodier than a normal ghoul’s as the pale red of his eyes turned a visceral scarlet. Touka backed away on instinct alone. She was fortunate, as at the next moment he snapped his jaw at the empty air where she had been. “CHUUU! A KISS!”

Roma jumped up behind her. “Shiko, Shiko, baby. He must be hungry.”

Shikorae began to struggle against the straight jacket he was in. He stood up, starting to dislocate joins as he hopped forward. Before he could get any farther, Furuta stepped in front of him and stuck out a leg. Shikorae tumbled forward and fell straight into a cabinet.

“Oy, that’s where I keep the good dishes.”

“It’s fine, it’s fine.” Furuta put his hands up trying to reassure her. Just then, Shikorae spasmed one last time before falling back asleep again. As the result of his movement, the plates that were sitting delicately placed up on the shelf, fell forward and rained all around him.

“Well, we did a good job. We tried to fix one thing, and we broke everything in the cafe. Literally everything.” Touka sighed and walked to the door turning the open sign to closed. “We’re going to have to close until we stock up on supplies again to fix everything Rio broke.”

She sighed and left. Once again walking away from Rio, unable to say or do a thing. She was stopped by a hand on her shoulder. “You don’t need to fix Rio you know, he might have memory problems but he’s not Sasaki.”

Touka stopped trying to leave, but she did not look back at him either. Furuta leaned closer over her. He whispered into her ear, it sounded indistinct, like a snake hissing, “You don’t have to use Rio, I’m right here. I don’t mind how I’m used, even if it’s just as a replacement”

Trust in me.  
“It’s not that. Rio he… he told me he loved me. I couldn’t love him back.”

Furuta tipped his head at an odd angle, causing his part to fall to the side revealing both eyes. “It’s not that you didn’t, but you couldn’t? What does that mean exactly?”

He was ever the curious little clown. Something told Touka though that he understood nothing at all about Love, despite how much expertise he claimed to talk with. “I couldn’t think of anything else, but waiting for Kaneki to come.”

Furuta smiled at this. “Well he’s back now, so why are you still waiting?”

♔

Kaneki knocked on the door of the cafe a while later. Sheepishly, he scratched at the back of his neck. “Do you think you can let me in, even if you’re closed? I’m a friend of the manager.”

Touka opened the door for him. Quietly, she stepped out of the way to let him in. Kaneki continued to talk to fill in the in the silence.

“I’m sorry I went somewhere else. Rio meant a lot to me, I wanted to find out what had happened to him from one of my contacts.”

Touka leaned in suddenly and sniffed his shoulder. “What kind of contact was that I wonder? You smell like a female ghoul again, but it’s not Rize.”

Kaneki wheezed, uncomfortably. “It’s not like that, jeez Touka what are you jealous?”

She tilted her head the other way. That wasn’t it. She walked a few steps back, and sat on the counter, as it was the only intact seat left in the cafe now that the room had been cleared out.

Kaneki followed after her, leaning against the counter instead. “I’ve been learning a lot lately. Apparently, there was a one eyed king of old.”

“Yeah, and?” Why would I care about the one eyed king. If only you had not come and called yourself that, we could have just lived peacefully in this cafe together. That name ruined everything.

“Oh, haha. I guess it’s an old story anyway. So, uh… Isn’t there something you wanted to talk about earlier?”

Touka’s mouth suddenly felt dry. She ran her tongue on the inside of her teeth. “Are you a-”

Suddenly the doors flew open. Tsukiyama was standing in between them, his suit was a mess and his hair fell lopsided over his eyes. “There’s trouble! My king! We were ambushed.”

Kaneki immediately stepped forward and away from Touka. She reached a handout, but kept it at her chest at last minute. “What’s the situation?”

“Our squad was tracking some investigators, but it turns out they were luring us into a trap. They employed the same strategy with our family butlers, we should have seen it coming. The rest of us fleed, but Ui insisted on staying to hold the line, he said it’s tradition for the highest rank investigator to do so.’

The tensing in Kaneki’s shoulders relaxed. “I see then, I’m glad you made it back safely Tsukiyama.”

“Me? My king, what about Ui he’s still in trouble. We should reinforce him.”

“He’s only one man, do you really think I should go on my own to protect every single person in this army? Sometimes being strong means knowing when to turn your back, besides…” Kaneki’s finger crossed and hovered over his knuckle. “I’m actually confident, Special Class Ui-senpai could handle an ambush of doves all on his own if he wanted to. If he’s having trouble facing them, it’s because he too is failing to choose.”

From behind him, Touka clicked her teeth. “What the hell kind of choice is that?”

“What’s more important to him, the feelings he had for his own comrades his old feelings of justice, or Hairu.” Kaneki crossed his arms. “Touka if you were Hairu, wouldn’t you rather have Ui come home alive no matter what the cost of it was?”

If she was… She was already Hairu. That didn’t mean she was happy to watch Kaneki kill invesetigators, even if it meant he came home alive. Her nails dug into the counter behind her. She must have been scratching harder than she realized, because she saw the trails her own nail marks left. Now she was going to have to refinish the counters too in addition to ordering new tables. “Damnit, that’s not a choice he should have to make.”

She kicked off the table and rushed forward. Touka was suddenly stopped in her tracks. Kaneki had reached out and grabbed her hand.

Oh, so now he wanted to hold her. When it meant holding her back. “Touka, it’s dangerous.” The phrase irked her as much the third time as it had the first. “This is going to turn out exactly like Rabbit did.”

“Being a ghoul is dangerous, fighting in a war is dangerous, so what should I do?” She snapped at him.

Kaneki’s eyes widened. His fingers, slowly one by one let go of her. “You’re right… I’m sorry. You’re always a much stronger person than me.” She had no idea what he was talking about, but she also had no time. She turned around and rushed out the door.

Furuta appeared from behind Kaneki. “Aren’t you going to go after her, my king?”

“There’s no point. Even if I do, I’ll still be staring at her back.”

Furuta chuckled. “It’s a great view from back there. If you won’t watch it then I will.”

♔

_“I thought I’d grown up enough for you already, when were you going to tell me? Do you know how I felt, all that time... what the hell, Touka!”_

_“Well, this seems like a family issue I’d hate to interrupt.”_

_Don’t leave me alone like that, bastard. She wanted to say something, but suddenly Ayato grabbed her by the collar of her shirt. “Hah, Haaaaaah!”_

_Touka blinked, she thought this was already settled. “You’re the one who chose to go off on your own. I told you it was better to keep quiet and follow Yoshimura’s rules, but you never listened.”_

_“I would have listened if you told me the truth!”_

_It was difficult to stay calm with Ayato shouting in her face but this was what she had always done. “I did tell you the truth. I told you that humans weren’t the enemy. That it was better to get along with them. That Aogiri was lying to you.”_

_“None of that was true, I was talking about dad! I thought this all happened because he was weak, because he refused to fight so he got snatched away.”_

_“That was the truth.” Touka sighed. “He was just weak in a different way than you thought. He was weak because he couldn’t get over mom and started fights with the CCG to avenge her, when he still had us to take care of.”_

_“That’s not, how would you even know that?” Ayato’s shouting calmed down at least. Touka hoped she had weathered the worst of it._

_“When we were younger I followed him after you fell asleep. I saw him, he had a full Kakuja and he was fighting off CCG officers. He tore through their faces, he tore off limbs, he left them dead in a pile behind him. It wasn’t to eat, he was just killing for his own sake.”_

_Ayato let go of her collar. Instead, both of his hands rolled up into fists. Those same hands used to be so small, Touka remembered. “That’s not it Touka. What dad always hated was that mom died alone, that he was too weak to protect her. If he had gotten that strong then, what dad must have been doing was protecting us.”_

_“How was killing doves and attracting more doves protecting us? He was just throwing himself into violence for his own sake, so he’d have something to fight.” Touka remembered, a bridge, a boy snapping his knuckles. The words I want to protect you coming from his mouth. It_ _was a lie, she knew it was. The only thing he wanted to protect was himself._

 _“The doves were already after him. Touka you don’t know this but, I saw it. They have dad’s Kakuja as a quinque. I fought with the man who wore it. It almost… recognized… nevermind.” Ayato shook his head. She saw his hands shaking too, she wondered what he was repressing at the moment. Anger, or sadness? For dumb boys like_ Ayato _it must have been the same._

_“They were after him because he drew attention to himself.”_

_“They were after him because they wanted to harvest him! They were after him because he was a ghoul. You were there Touka, we were just kids and they were going to capture us and harvest us_ too, _because we might grow a_ kagune _like his. They threw a net around us like we were animals, why are you taking their side?”_

_“Not all humans are bad, Ayato. We can’t just kill all of them.”_

_“Not all ghouls are bad either.”_

_Furuta’s words occurred to her then. She didn’t hate ghouls, she just hated the world of ghouls. He was wrong about her. “The ghouls in Aogiri were bad. So why did you join them?”_

_“The same reason dad fought. I wanted to… I wanted to be strong enough to protect you. I couldn’t let them take you away like dad, if you were passive and hid like him, they were going to come for you anyway.”_

_“So you killed investigators? What were you going to do, get strong enough to destroy the whole CCG on your own? How was that protecting me? You left me alone, you weren’t anywhere near me?”_

_“Don’t bullshit me Touka like you never put down investigators. The person who put the rabbit mask on first was you, not me! I’m the one who kept it on!” Ayato was back to shouting again. Touka wanted to roll her_ one eyed _she knew this conversation wasn’t going to get anywhere with him. “You know what I think, you did learn from dad, but you learned all the wrong stuff, not the cool shit he did. What you remember most is when he made_ food, _and forced us to eat it even when nobody was looking so we would look human. Is that what you really want, Touka? To be born human?”_

_“That’s not it.”_

_“Really? Because if you were human you could have kept going to school with that annoying girl who made you food. If you were human, you could have had a normal_ part time _job. If you were human, without a problem you could fuck-”_  
_Touka had not realized that her fists were balling too, just like Ayato’s. She had not realized her desire to punch him until she had already throw it, and her brother’s face was falling_ backwards _from her. She saw blood come out of his nose in an arc._

 _She still remembered. The pain she felt as Ayato dug his shards of_ kagune _into her on that rooftop, as he bit into her kakuhou. She tried to forget it so much, but his words had freshly dug into her skin worse than another round of_ kagune _bullets. Protecting her? How was beating the shit out of her protecting_ her.

_No, that wasn’t what bothered her. What bothered her was the name he called her. “Rabbit.”_

“It’s rabbit!”

The ghoul investigators that surrounded Ui now called out as she jumped from above and unleashed a hail of ukaku shards at them. Ui only looked up for a second, and then suddenly his spear like quinque was met with another. His looked more like a sword, but blunt.

“So you really are on the side of ghouls, Ui. What is this, revenge against the CCG? Just because you lost your rank?”

“No, it’s not about rank anymore. I realized, there’s an order to the important things in life.” Ui said coldly, he was looking at Fura with only one eye though, the other seemed cross. Fura rushed forward suddenly trying to break the stalemate between the two believing to see an opening in Ui’s guard. Ui spun his quinque around and diverted the blow, then kicked the other back with a foot sending him across the ground.

Behind him, both Kuramoto and Takeomi gasped. It was an opening one could easily take to finish off their opponent, but Ui merely lowered his weapon to his side. “You can’t approach a special class like that Fura.” He looked back to the ghoul with the hood covering her face. “Thank you for coming, but it’s unnecessary. I can hold them off form here.”

“The hell are you talking about with at macho bullshit! You haven’t even killed any of them yet, look at you.” Touka stomped her foot next to him. “How the hell can you say something like ‘I’ll hold them off,’ when there’s someone at home waiting for you? What’s Hairu going to do if you die, there won’t be anyone left for her in the whole world.”

“What?” Kuramoto said.

“First class Hairu is dead.” Fura repeated.

Kuroiwa raised his eyebrows.

“Who gave you permission to speak her name? You forgot about her like they all did. Hairu’s waiting for me…” Ui repeated. One of the newer members of the squad suddenly moved forward to try to take advantage of his hesitation. Ui without even turning his head struck behind him, and stabbed the officer straight through the face. He let the body fall at his feet, not even looking at it. Instead he looked up to Fura with cold eyes. “You should train your squad better. That’s not how you should approach a special class.”

Touka looked around, Ui had been holding them off that whole time without killing a single one. No, that’s not what she wanted him to do. She didn’t want him to kill, simply come home.

“The hell are you talking about? Kuramoto, Takeomi, I have Ui, you two handle rabbit.” Fura rushed forward, his hair becoming slightly disheveled as he swung his quinque again. Ui intercepted it, this time easily keeping the other at a distance. “You think this is what Arima would want, what Hairu would want? This is how you honor their memory?”

Ui looked him dead on in the eye. “I have no idea what the hell Arima wants anymore.” Four more fresh squad members tried to ambush Ui while Fura was holding off the brunt of his attacks, they went down just like the first one that tried to take him from behind. His mastery of his quinque that dexterous that he could cover any distance around him as long as his quinque could reach there. “Two, three, four, five… that’s five corspes. Shall we get going?”

“Like hell I’d stop.”

Touka herself had stopped using her quinque and engaged both Kuramoto and Kuroiwa hand to hand. She recognized the boy with the strange eyebrows. Yoriko had talked about him once. Yoriko… it had been so long. She could not kill him.

Funny, she was the ghoul and the less bloodthirsty in this situation.

“Nine….” Ui finally lunged forward at him with Taruhi’s whip function. It dragged across his face, cutting his flesh, but did not cut any deeper than the surface. Fura fell back on his ass for the second time today. He felt more like an old man than ever before. “Do you want to be ten? What’s more important to you, rank or your daughter?”

“I don’t want a murderer like you asking me that question.” Fura responded.

Ui kicked the Quinque that had fallen out of his hands forward towards him. “That lantern, Arima told me the story. You knew the ghoul before she became a quinque, you killed her with your own hands. Aren’t we both murderers?”

Fura seemed to respond to that. His eyes widened as he looked to the others around him. Panicked for once, his old man face melted away and he looked like a child again as he called for it. “Retreat!”

Despite the fact that they still had numbers, the Kuramoto squad, and Fura’s squad together started to turn and run. Ui lowered his quinque enough to give Fura time to stand and run. He scrambled to pick up lantern as he did.

When they cleared out, Ui sighed looking at the bodies in front of him. There was still blood on the ground, but it was rainy season and it was likely to wash away quickly. Touka had no idea what to say. “You couldn’t bring yourself to kill him, right?”

She finally asked. Ui shook his head. “The two of us were going at it like we wanted to kill each other. I would have…” He left that sentence dangling in the air. Instead Koori Ui slapped at the sides of his pockets. “I need a smoke. It’s so much harder to buy cigarettes when you’re a wanted criminal. Fura always lent me his before his wife started making him quit.”

Touka had nothing else to say. Lucky for her, just then Furuta arrived. As she saw him running over the horizon, she realized he ran like an idiot. “Awe, I missed all the fun.” He whined.

“You took forever this time,” Touka sighed. He always seemed to pop up where he was least wanted.

“I’m sorry if my nimudash isn’t as fast as a kingdash!” He flopped his body upwards, no longer holding his knees tired from the run, his hair flopped with him. “Ui, are you okay? You’re covered in blood.”

“It’s fine, it’s not mine.” Ui said, looking back at him with a slightly cross eyed look.

Touka did not want to talk about blood. “Let’s go back already.” She said, grabbing onto his sleeve and forcefully tugging him forward.

“You’re rather pushy for a ghoul you know,” Ui sighed. “Let’s go back home to Hairu.”

Touka let go of him then as he slung his quinque around his back and began to move forward. On his own though, he barely made it one step before his legs gave out and he stumbled. Touka realized just then he was more injured in the fight then he let on. She glared at Furuta, and Furuta made a weak protest but then obeyed sliding himself under Ui’s shoulder and putting the man’s arm around himself to prop him up

“Why are you pushing yourself so far for her sake?” Touka asked, as she walked behind the two of the boys hobbling in front of her.

“You know there’ll be hell to pay from the CCG from now on,” Furuta tacked on. “If they find out about her, an escaped experiment and you a rogue officer they might just kill the both of you.”

Ui did not look at either of them. He was looking at some far off place. “Because I love her. I want to do the thing that’ll make Hairu happy… because I love her. If it’s for her sake.. I’ll use myself, to do anything and everything. I already have the devil to pay so, I might as well pay for the both of us.”

Touka paused. The words seemed so strange. They were all fighting for love, but Ui admitted it so brazenly.

“You should tell her. That you’re the one fighting for her sake, and not Arima. Tell her so she doesn’t have to wait anymore for someone who is never coming…”

Ui looked back at her finally. In his eyes, there was a familiar sadness. “I understand, Kirishima.”

“Do you really?” Furuta spoke up again. “If you want to understand about love, you shouldn’t speak to a lovesick idiot. Here’s a Furuta tip for you right now, Furuta tip #3. You can’t live on love alone. So how about trying hatred instead?”

“What are you saying.”

“You’ll come to hate the person you love the most if you continue down this path. I’m not joking this time, Koori. I’m rather serious.” He looked at the other. For the first time Ui could see both eyes in his expression. “I’m almost sorry to tell you this.”

“Fuck off.”

Ui said pushing Furuta away from him.

The rest of the trip he continued walking on his own.

When they finally got to that old mansion, Touka and Furuta listened from behind a closed door. They could not make out most of the conversation.

“Please don’t fight you two…” Hajime called out desperately.

“Hairu… now that you’re a ghoul, the CCG is going to start hunting you. I want to protect you from them. Moreso than that, I want to fight for your sake. So that the two of us can keep on living together, don’t you think that’s a better reason to fight than an empty justice?”

Hairu said nothing.

Finally, a small voice rose up.

“Don’t cling to me so desperately.”

Ui was silent.

Then he too, spoke in the same harsh cutting whisper. “Arima Kishou is dead. He’s not going to praise you any more Hairu, he never was going to. At least the person I’m clinging to is still alive.”

Ui walked out and slammed the door behind him. When he came out, his beautiful face was filled with the same kind of sadness she had seen in him earlier. He looked up and tried to say something but couldn’t.

From the door behind him, Hajime’s voice rose up again. “No, Hairu you have to eat don’t throw your food away please!”

Touka thought there was nothing beautiful about sadness at all. She wanted to smash it. A moment later her fist smashed into his face sending him to the ground. Ui only barely resisted.

“What?” He asked in an empty way.

“What the hell was that? I thought you loved her, you only told her that to hurt her.”

“I don’t.. I don’t know…”

She looked up to see Furuta smiling. Touka was tired of it. She grabbed him by the sleeve and dragged him out with her. Ui was left there, sitting, brooding in his own silence.

It had started to rain outside just as she predicted. She was glad the rain was so noisy. It covered up the noises she made, as she beat her fists against Furuta’s chest and yelled in frustration.

♔

It was still raining by the time they reached the cafe. Furuta held an umbrella over her head, and the two of them walked under it together not thinking much of it. The cafe was silent, but Touka raised the alarm as soon as she saw Rio’s straightjacket on the floor.

“Who let Rio out!” She said stomping her foot.

“Yo!” An Owl hooted out a greeting at her.

When she turned her head, the ghoul was sitting, or rather squatting on a stool. Takizawa Seidou just sat on the bar itself. Between the two of them there was a plate of red meat, still bloody. She didn’t have to guess what kind of meat that was.

“Sorry for taking him out without permission, I just thought he’d calm down a little if we had dinner together. Most people turn out nicer when you get to know them over a meal.” Takizawa said as he grabbed one of the steaks with his bare hands and bit into it, stretching the meat out.

“Rank two, didn’t anybody teach you table manners?” Furuta asked from behind her.

“Well yeah, but I forgot ‘em.”

Touka noticed how quiet Rio was being. She took a step forward and held a hand out. “Rio, is that you?”

Rio turned his head away further. “Please… don’t look at me. I don’t want you to see me like this.”

Touka felt unease in her chest. She did exactly as he asked though and looked away. “W-what happened to you?”

“I… I don’t know… when I’m hungry, I get like that. I was all alone, there were things I didn’t want to think about, so I just started to think about food all the time.”

“What did you not want to think about?” She continued to pry.

“Y-you… I…” Rio swallowed the blood that was in his mouth. “I’m jealous… I’m awful… I can’t be happy for the person I love… I just keep thinking about how you forgot about me, but waited for Kaneki all this time.”

“That’s not it, Rio.” She reached towards him now, but this time it was Rio who moved away from her. Touka stopped and did not pursue him. “I’m sorry…” She whispered.

“It’s fine. It’s my fault, I should have never left the Cochlea. I’m… not what you think I am.”

Touka wondered what Rio saw himself as. But, it’s as Furuta said, why did she want to save him? Did she just want to mother him? Did she want to fix him? She shook her head and turned around.

Wishing to be alone, she moved to the back room. Of course who did she find there, but Kaneki, smiling and reading a book. Touka tilted her head up, looking at him with one eye. “You’re sitting on my desk you know.”

“Oh, I’m sorry Touka.” He jumped to his feet. “Did you see? Takizawa helped Rio remember us. I’m so happy.”

Touka tilted her head further. “Yeah…”

“Oh, we can finish our talk from earlier. What was it you wanted to ask me.”

Touka looked at him with both eyes. “Are you… going to let me fight with Ayato? I want to help him investigate the way quinques are made too because… my father Arata was harvested into one.”

Kaneki’s eyes widened. Reluctantly, he gave a slow nod.

They had a long conversation, but it wasn’t really about anything. None of the things she really wanted to say.

In the aftermath of a long day, Touka was left alone in her now empty cafe. She stood in the middle of the now clean floor, at least they had managed to drag out the broken tables to the dumpster in the back.

“I found some old cups in the back! Do you want some coffee, Touka?” A cheerful voice called out to her. She looked at Furuta approaching her with flat eyes.

“Those cups are… Whatever, I need some caffeine.” Furuta set them down on the counter. When Touka picked up her cup with a chipped rim, she looked down at the black coffee and found something floating in it. “A rubber ducky?”

“He’s my good friend, treat him kindly.”

She picked up the duck, and put it atop Furuta’s head. Touka giggled at that sight. She finally put the drink to her lips. The brew tasted absolutely terrible. Apparently, Furuta had learned nothing at all from training under her. She still drank the whole cup.

“Furuta?” She hummed as she put the cup back in its saucer.

“Hmm?” He hummed back at her.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Anything for you, Touka. I’m at your service.”

Touka wanted to roll her eye at that. It was obviously not the truth. Instead, she just asked her question. “Are you a virgin?”

“Umm. No.” Furuta answered. “That’s kind of a dumb question.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next week. Furuta fun time. Furuta! Furuta fun time! Furuta! Fun! Time! Furuta! Furuta! Furuta!


	10. X

“Are you a virgin?”

It was a difficult thing to appear to be listening and to actually absorb any important information, while still not at all paying attention. Furuta sharpened that skill in the garden.

If he had listened too closely, he would have become brainwashed just like Hairu. Pitiable thing, even as he watched her head fly from her shoulders, he still felt that. At the time, he'd thought, _hah, well she was never using it anyway._ It had still been pity though, even if it wasn't the sort he imagined humans extended to each other. If he had watched a particularly loyal dog slowly starve to death while waiting for their master to come home - knowing that its master had died and would never come - he was sure he would feel something similar.

He didn’t hate her, though, which was a miracle by his standards.

If he did not listen at all he would have become Arima. To be so completely capable of shutting himself out from everything, to appear so untouchable, Furuta sometimes wondered what plane Arima saw himself as standing on, because it clearly wasn’t the mortal one. Furuta did not hate him either, but that did not mean he could leave him alone up there. If he saw a tower teetering in front of him with one obvious stone holding it up, he would naturally want to pull it out.

It was the same reason he went so far for Takatsuki-sensei - he did not hate her - no, no - he just could not resist his instinct.

Between listening too much and not listening at all, the key was to listen just enough. It seemed obvious, right? Furuta was surprised how often people were too wrapped up in their own heads to grasp obvious things like that. If he remembered correctly, that was exactly what he did at the time, listened just enough while that woman talked over and over about herself.

_“We always meet like this in secret, it’s romantic, but… I don’t understand why I can’t tell my family about you.” Ami said, leaning over the table to make the too obvious curves of her body bend in a way that her breasts were more supple. Her hair was oily, probably done up with some substance, and Kanou’s surgery made the smell twice as irritating on his nose. All of those beauty products, trying to cover and distract from her body._

_It’s a waste you know, the only thing I appreciate about you is your ugliness._

_“I come from an old and proper family. What I’m doing right now is unorthodox, we’re not allowed to see women unless we have the full intention of marrying them.”_

_“The other day you told me your family wasn’t that important to you. Now you’re saying that they’re important? Why do you always change your story like this?”_

_Both of those things were true, Ami just lacked the common sense to connect the dots. Really, she had no appreciation at all to the narrative he was weaving. “What I said earlier… I wasn’t sure of my feelings. That’s why I’m telling you the truth now.”_

_“What is the truth then? That I’m some girl you see on the side behind your family’s back as a distraction from their strict rules? Tell me, Souta!”_

_“I am telling you. You always rush so fast my dear Ami-” (It’s presumptuous really,) “the truth is I wanted to marry you for a long time now. If I was avoidant, it was because I was afraid that you wouldn’t accept those feelings, or accept me.”_

_“I felt the same way… because my body is like this… I didn’t know if you would…”_

_It went exactly as he predicted. Even if he left holes in his story, she would be too wrapped up in herself to notice. He knew of one surefire way to blind her. He stood up from the table right then, leaving his food untouched and leaning over to kiss her right there. If it were up to him he would have emulated the scene from_ Lady and the Tramp _with the spaghetti, but kissing Ami was nauseating enough. He didn't need to add the human food that had become so disagreeable with him lately into the mix._

_That night, when she pulled her dress down, Furuta realized that in this hotel room, she would want to have all of her body validated. Oh well, he thought, rolling his eyes as he pushed her onto the bed. At least with those clothes drenched in perfume off, he could smell it, her sweat, marinating the oily meat of her body._

_It’s ironic. Even though I’m a born failure and a reject, I can do that job of a Washuu quite well._

_Furuta tried to think of himself as elsewhere, as he did in all uncomfortable moments. Ever since he was young, thinking of all of these events as if they were interconnected and part of his plan gave him solace, even if it was a bit of a childish fantasy. He was a clever little boy though, one who could think on his feet._

_The gourmet club was an easy enough way to introduce yourself to the ghoul world, and he had no trouble selling a plan based around some quarter truth of it to V. And it was easy enough, despite their rumored selectivity, all you really needed was money to qualify._

_And then, one night when chatting with MM-san, he was given the perfect opening. A book the man had been reading,_ The Black Goat’s Egg. _One night, when tailing her from afar, he had seen her walk into a bookshop and pick up that exact book. All Furuta had to do was casually make the suggestion._

_“I know someone with similar tastes in literature to you, and she’s a ravenous eater, too. She would do good, to have a friend like you in her life to introduce her to finer dining.”_

_He nudged MM-san in that direction, hoping Tsukiyama might be the one to lead Rize here. Of course, he had underestimated just how much someone like Tsukiyama would be trapped within his own head. He failed to make the gourmet club sound appealing to Rize at all, and she passed on it. His own pride made any attempt at trying to pursue a friendship with her impossible, despite Souta’s casual prodding. And so, he had had to take matters into his own hands. As usual._

_But if one route failed, all he ever had to do was wait for another opportunity to present itself. If he had no need to play one of his cards when he planned to do so, another trick would always come around that called for just such a turn. The gourmet club had other uses, and so did Ami._

_When MM-san bragged about a cafe he went to with the most charming atmosphere owned by ghouls, he figured he had found his trick. That had to be Kuzen’s place, and Furuta knew that that place harbored Kanou’s prototype. And this was how he would use Ami. If one thing led to another, then he would have something to bring the gourmet club on the night that Tsukiyama dragged his very special meal in. He could at least witness the progress of Kanou’s lost prototype._

_And so that night was not worthless. It was all part of the long game. All he had to do was simply endure this moment and make it worthwhile._

_And eventually, it would be._

_“You lied to me! Coming this far… you definitely did! What about your promise to marry me? I thought today’s dinner was surely about that.”_

_“Wow, what big ambitions.” Furuta reached into his ear with a gloved hand_ _and scratched at the inside. As if he was not sure what he had just heard. He didn’t really want to listen too much to that woman anymore._

_I should be talking… really…_

Or so he thought at the time, but apparently, the lifelong ambitions, the decades-long plan he had held so steadfastly to, could be changed more easily than he'd ever imagined.

Furuta looked back to Touka with her question out of the blue, once again thinking of lofty ambitions.

“Umm. No,” He said, his voice flat and lacking in its usual drama. Furuta tilted his head to the side, looking at her at an odd angle, “That’s kind of a dumb question.”

Touka’s head raised in response, just enough that her hair fell away from both of her eyes. Furuta decided he picked a good angle to observe her at. She puffed out her cheeks as if to pout and there was nothing to obscure that childish expression of hers. “N-nevermind then.”

“There’s no way I can let a topic that juicy drop so easily, my dear Touka.” Furuta said, resting his cheek, the one without the mole, on a gloved hand and looking back at her.

“Please don’t describe sex as juicy, that’s just disturbing,” Touka said flatly. “W.. was there something you wanted to talk about?”

“Just why you thought that was a good thing to ask. It’s a little ‘teehee, sex’, don’t you think? You are a mature beauty by now, aren’t you?” Furuta tilted his chin up at her.

“Would you stop phrasing things like that." Touka was staring at him, or rather staring at the mole underneath his eye, which he knew she did when she did not want to focus on any particular part of his face. "You’re right though, I’m plenty mature, stupid face.” She sipped her coffee cup then, seemingly pleased with her retort. It wasn't bad, he would give her that.

“Oh, that’s good. I was worried for a moment that you’d never had sex before.” Furuta watched Touka choke on her coffee in response to his words. “Ah, I see. What a waste.”

“Nobody asked you!” Touka’s cup was shaking with her hands, probably just from the surprise. She put it down.

“Actually, you asked me,” Furuta said, easily. He wasn't going to pass up an opportunity to sass her.

“I was just curious. What kind of person would sleep with a pervert like you, anyway?” Touka said.

“What? Are you assuming, just because I’m a bad person, that I’d only sleep with bad people?" he said, mock-offended, "I mean, you’re right, but it's still quite the assumption.” Furuta leaned forward and tented his hands together. He hid his mouth in the crisscross of his fingers. “My body, it only exists to fulfill a purpose. I lost it to an ugly and fat woman, but I didn’t particularly mind. There are others where I come from who went through a lot worse.”

 _Mother_.

Furuta thought for one fraction of a second, before dropping a load of steel beams on that thought. 

“Why are you looking down on me then? It didn’t sound like you had fun at all.” She must have thought that was all he lived for. In front of her, he acted like nothing more than a clown. That was probably for the best. He had almost let himself get serious a moment ago. 

When he sat like this on top of the counter, it hiked his pants up slightly. His ankles were exposed, and then so, too, were his polka dot socks. She snuck a glance at them, and the garters around his ankles, but quickly looked up again. Furuta could see her. He smiled and kicked his feet idly, giving her a clearer view. “We’ve already gone over this, it’s because I’m a bad person. You, however, are a good person. Don’t you think if you did it with someone, it would be beautiful?” 

Touka tried to hide her expression. Still, Furuta caught her glancing at the door. It was obvious who she was thinking about. “I wanted to wait…” She said, much quieter than before.

“Is that so? I’m starting to detect a pattern. It seems like all you do is wait, recently.” Furuta sipped his coffee for no other reason than he was feeling particularly smug at the moment. The coffee he brewed was not nearly as good as Touka’s, it tasted like brown swill, but still, if he was a proper aesthetician, he needed to know how to punctuate a moment. “Even if you did do it with him, he’d probably make you wait for him to come first.”

Touka smacked him on the back of his head immediately after that. Furuta spat the coffee he had in his mouth in the air. He was weak from not eating meat and his skin was not as hard as a ghoul's now. That had actually hurt. Furuta twisted back around to smile at her.

“What’s with that face?”  She should have known better than to ask him, really, after all this time.

“I rather like impudent women, you know.” 

“Ew! Gross!” Touka put her hand over her mouth as if she was about to vomit. Really, she had no appreciation for his act at all.

He grinned wider, just to frustrate her. No matter what she did, he would always smile. That was their game. And besides, Furuta wanted to mark himself as different from Kaneki, who most often could only muster a despondent look and sigh these days.

“Furuta is hitting on me, I should call the CCG to protect myself.”

At that, he let himself laugh out loud. It was a good comeback. Touka simply blew air from her lips. She puffed her cheeks out. “Seriously, you’re messed up you know.”

Furuta just tilted his head, letting that hang in the air.

At that moment, Touka realized what she had said, and who she said it too. From her now usually tightly wound lips, a few giggles escaped. It was nice, Furuta thought, hearing her laugh.

He stuck his pointer and pinky fingers out to make a pair of fox ears, and then raised his hand rather cheekily by his chin. “Well, obviously!”

“No, I didn’t mean it like that,” Touka said, a sudden reticence in her voice. She was so hard, and then soft, he didn’t quite understand it.

“But you should, shouldn’t you?” He said, voice sing song to tease her.

Touka looked away. This much he understood. She was refusing to answer.

“I don’t mind, Touka. I’d rather have you laughing at me then laughing with me. You’re a good person after all. Somebody who should step on me." A pause. " I mean somebody who should be a step above me.”

She narrowed her one visible eye at him. “What did you just say there?”

“All I'm saying is if you want my advice, It’s not worth waiting. Unless you want to be really bad your first time with him.”

“I think what I want right now is to hit you again.”

“Oh, I want that as well." He stuck his hand out, three fingers raised. "Here’s Furuta’s tip number three: just do it with the first person you see. That way it’s not a big deal anymore.”

Touka looked away. “I guess I should keep my eyes closed around you from now on.”

“Oooh, nice one.” He meant to end that with a smile, but the expression he settled on was more hungry than that.  Not for her, he told himself. Never for someone like her. He lied as easily as he breathed, but he had been telling her some form of the truth.

Touka was a good person. The kind that he didn't believe could really exist in this world. Not for long. She was above him. And he found he'd rather stay below her than be the one to drag her down. So, like a good bus boy, he jumped off the counter and collected both of their dishes to wash without saying anything more.

♔

Something strange happened the next day. Kaneki Ken visited the cafe more than two days in a row. Ever since becoming king, his visits became more and more scarce. How long had it been… one month since Rueshima, then he was captured, and almost two months since the Valentine's Day party they all threw.

Yet sometimes he would go a whole week without even sending a word. He stopped sleeping in his room upstairs entirely after the first month, and just last week Touka said that Furuta could sleep there if he wanted to.

Furuta thought it the proper thing for Kaneki to do. He had become the king of all of ghoulkind, after all. He should not focus on one small group of individuals over the rest. Furuta almost thought he grew up a little, his cute baby king.

Which is why he watched Kaneki with such a keen eye today, as he walked around the cafe in his waiter’s apron. There were no other customers, but Furuta still needed to pretend to be busy, otherwise, his eavesdropping would be obvious.

Touka and Kaneki talked the other day. Furuta wondered what about. _Did something change between you two?_  he thought, tilting his head back at an odd angle to watch them. What in the world did they talk about, he wondered. Then he wondered why he cared so much.

“Is Rio doing better?” Kaneki asked. He sat, his hands laying on the counter. Touka next to him, her hand a few inches away. However, a cup in between the two kept them from touching. How fitting.

“He’s an even worse employee than when he first started, and he only responds to the name Rio half of the time.” Touka started to complain.

“Oh…” Kaneki said softly.

Touka’s eye looked towards him. “I’m sure he’s going to be fine. He doesn’t need to fight anymore, he’ll be safe here.”

Kaneki reached out, but it was not for Touka’s hand, just the coffee cup in between them. He held it in the air for a moment without taking a sip. “I’m happy we have this place, for all of our lost friends to come back to.”

Touka nodded her head. “That’s why I made this place… :re, it’s like a second chance.” She started to reach for the same coffee cup. Just as an excuse to hold his hand, how adorably quaint. “You could stand to come back to this place a little more…”

“Oh…” Kaneki raised his head so both of his eyes were visible. He was being more expressive than usual today. It was an obvious look of realization, but he had only realized anything at all because Touka so explicitly spelled it out for him. Which meant he didn't deserve any reward for it.

“Are you sure it means a second chance?" Furuta spoke up, purposefully interrupting the moment they were having. "The prefix :re could mean a lot of things, like repeat, for instance, reset, or rerun. All of which are rather boring."

There was distance between the two of them. One Touka tried to close, and Kaneki tried to pull away further from. There was a hole. A large, Furuta sized hole. He could not help but want to shove himself between them. He was only human, after all. (Well actually, he wasn’t.)

“How about :re treat.” Touka said as she balled her fingers up into a fist.

“Oooh, scary woman,” Furuta called back at her.

Touka rolled her one visible eye. “If you’re bored, then nobody asked you to listen.”

“I can’t help it, the sexual tension is so thick in here you can cut it. Maybe the two of you should get a room already, some of us are trying to work.” Furuta crossed his arms and stood his ground, as if he really were trying to get something done in the cafe.

“What do you mean working, Roma’s asleep over there,” Touka said, pointing to the counter which Roma was drooling on. There really wasn't much to do since Rio broke all the tables, and they were still waiting on a delivery from the dining supplies outlet.

Furuta moved over and grabbed Roma by the three way tuft on the top of her head. “Oi, you’re making me look bad.”

Roma blinked her eyes. “Oh no, Vancouver-san. Watch out! Huh? Whazzhappenin?”

Kaneki laughed softly in the background. “I think you need to put your foot down harder on these clowns, Touka…”

Furuta let go of Roma, whose head plop right back down on the counter, and stepped in front of Touka. He leaned towards her with a hand on his chest in an almost gentlemanly bow. “Yes, please Touka, put your foot down harder on me.”

Touka made an unpleasant face in reaction, but she did not lean away. “I think you already used that joke earlier.”

Oh, so he had. “I swear I’m wasting all of my best material on you.”

She didn't miss a beat. “If that’s your best, then I’m glad it’s going to waste.”

From beside her, Kaneki spoke up, a hand resting on his chin. “Wait, what did he say earlier?”

“Oh, are you becoming interested in me, Kaneki?” Furuta said.

Kaneki smiled. “Not at all.”

Furuta looked to Touka, and he could tell she saw the same opening he did here.

“If you want to know what we talk about when you’re not around, you should be here more often.” A smile curled on her lips. She was teasing him. How good, how good.

Kaneki pulled his lips tight at that. He pouted just like a child.

Furuta leaned further into that empty space between them. “We were definitely smack-talking you behind your back.”

Kaneki just reflected Furuta’s smile back at him. Just as hollow, just as empty. It was like looking in a mirror. “Then you must have had a lot to talk about.” 

Kaneki jumped off of the counter and started to the door. “Touka, I’ll see you later," he called back. He lingered at the door for a moment. “Furuta, I hope I don’t.” That frigid tone was familiar, too. Very familiar.

When he was gone, Furuta broke into a fit of laughter. “How cold! it’s like he’s telling me, 'Go die.'”

“I’m sure a lot of people tell you that.” Touka said, picking up the coffee cup that Kaneki had left behind.

“The only one I want telling me that is you, Touka,” he cooed.

“You or Kaneki, I don’t want either of you to die.” She sounded rather serious, suddenly.

Why, Furuta did not know. What a strange thing to be serious about. 

♔

Managing a cafe, Furuta had learned over the past few months, was actually rather demanding work. Even if said cafe was little more than a front these days, Touka still had plenty to do. And so, Furuta was left alone manning the counter, which he had decided to do while sitting atop it now that all the cups were washed and put away. Which was where he was, picking lint off his uniforms pants, when the bell at the door chimed.

Well, technically, Roma was there, too, a bubble of snot in one of her nostrils. At least she wasn't drooling on the counter this time.  “Grandma, wake up. We have a customer," he said, once again grabbing her by the convenient cluster of hairs sticking up out of the top of her head like a handle.

"Yer takin this too seriously don’t ya think." She said, with a yawn. "This place isn’t like Anteiku, the only customers that come by here nowadays are goat members. Especially after Rio Baby gave it a makeover.”

Furuta scoffed. “I never take anything seriously, how dare you accuse me of that.”

Tsukiyama made his way to the counter and rested his chin in his hands, watching them, reminiscent of the way he used to lean against the railing at the gourmet club. “Is there a problem, madame Roma?”

That was enough to finally get Roma to open her eyes. “Ooh, he called me madame," she said, hurriedly swiping her hair from her face and moving to smooth her shirt with her hand - both gestures entirely futile. "Nothing, nothing, dear, just catching up on my beauty sleep.”

“Once you reach that age there’s nothing left to do but nap all day.” For that, Furuta was elbowed in the gut. Again. Ow. These ghouls had no respect for his fragile condition.

“Where’s the manager? You two didn’t do anything to her, did you?” There seemed to be a threat inherent in Tsukiyama’s voice. Furuta wondered why he cared about Touka so much, then figured it was probably just concern for Kaneki’s sake.

“She’s in the back arguing with the warehouse. I offered to do it for her, but she didn’t want to end up with everything polka dotted.” Furuta crossed his legs, revealing his polka dot socks once more. “She has no faith in my design senses at all, how painful.”

“Simpatico. I know how you feel. She’s always laughing at my STYLISH and COOL outfits as well. That girl just has no taste. She must have been born without it, what a tragedy.” Tsukiyama had a look of true sympathy in his eyes.

Furuta heard somebody muttering in the other room, and realized that rather than being on the phone Touka must have been listening in. How fun. It was more fun to insult people in earshot, then behind their backs where they couldn’t hear.

Furuta looked between Roma and himself and decided he was the slightly more competent person (though your definition of a person may vary) here. He hopped off the counter and went back to the coffee machine and started to make coffee. What else was a good waiter supposed to do? Oh, small talk. “So, what brings you here?”

“It’s better that Touka’s not here I suppose, because something’s been weighing on my heart recently.” Tsukiyama's voice dropped into that register he used when he was about to say something dramatic and heart felt. When he'd first met Tsukiyama, he'd assumed it was something the man did intentional. An act. But it wasn't. He was just naturally that overdramatic. He would never have made it as a clown. 

Furuta turned around with a smile. “I don’t care." (lol) "What do I look like to you,  a bartender for you to pour your heart out to?”

“To be honest you look like nothing at all to me.” Tsukiyama said raising his head to look at Furuta, his tone back to that false pleasentness he used for small talk. That one was good actually. It seemed MM-san had improved a little bit at least, since their days at the gourmet club together.

Furuta poured the beans into the filter and began to work with them. “So you wanted your coffee black right? It must be a tragedy that you can’t order one of those artisanal coffee drinks, gourmet-kun.”

Instead of picking up the banter Furuta was so kindly offering, Tsukiyama returned to his more serious tone. How annoying. “The question I wanted to ask was something I could only ask you.”

Why was he getting all this attention all of a sudden, Furuta wondered. Was it really something only he could answer or was Kaneki just unavalible.

“How did it feel to be treated as a servant by the people you were blood-related to?”

Oh. Furuta stared forward. As usual, MM-san had no sense of subtlety at all. Another thing is what disqualified him from being an effective clown. “Like shit, next question?”

Tsukiyama blinked. “No, no, I mean.”

And no ability to read the room. Make that three things. “I know what you mean, but as I said, I’m not a bartender here to listen to your woes.” Furuta then picked up a cup and began to wipe it with a cloth exactly as he'd seen it done on television. Along with his uniform and apron, it made him the perfect picture of a bartender.

Tsukiyama sighed. At least he seemed to realize that he was going to have to try a different approach if he wanted to actually get anything. _Baby steps, MM-san,_ Furuta thought. 

Shuu's eyes trailed off to the counter where Roma had fallen asleep once more. “What’s wrong with young sleeping beauty there?” Tsukiyama asked.

“She wore herself out looking for Rio maybe," Furuta said, gesturing with his dish tower. " Or she could just be slacking off. As a person she’s both unreliable and terrible.” Roma quite obviously frowned. Oh, so she wasn't really sleeping after all. The little sneak.

“Now, now, my friend. That’s no way to talk about a beautiful young lady.” At that Roma quite obviously smiled.

Furuta wanted to roll his eyes. He was afraid that would be too obvious at spoiling Roma’s secret though, even for the members of Goat. He had given them too many hints already. But, more interestingly, it seemed that he was back to ‘my friend’ in Tsukiama’s eyes. Ghouls forgave and forgot far too easily. It was annoying.

“You know, Matsumae reminded me so much of one of those Washuu retainers. All so doggedly loyal and willing to die for cannibals who think of them as if they're nothing. It disgusted me.” Shuu hadn't even come asking about her today. Perhaps he just needed a reminder.

Tsukiyama’s coffee cup shook, but otherwise, he continued to look ahead with a practiced, polite expression on his face. “Is that so?”

So Furuta pushed harder. “I wanted to tear her apart. And so I did, with a chainsaw, slowly. But first I plucked her eyes out though so she felt a moment of dark unknowing fear before her death.”

Tsukiyama put his coffee cup down. The bottom clanged against the saucer. The liquid inside rippled, nearly spilling over the edge, but Tsukiyama just stared ahead at Furuta, blankly. “Oh, I see. That’s rather poetic and thoughtful of you.”

Furuta tilted his head, and Tsukiyama's eyes followed. He was tempted to wave his hand in front of the man's face. Maybe that would snap him out of this trancelike tranquility. “What are you doing exactly?” He asked, instead.

“Conducting myself with dignity as a man of the Tsukiyama family ought to, instead of sinking to your level, my friend," Shuu said. "I could drive my Tsukiyama kagune straight through your chest but it wouldn’t bring Matsumae back.”

“Pretending she never died won’t bring her back either,” Furuta countered.

“You’re just trying to bait me,” Tsukiyama parried.

“You’re not fun, you could at least fall for it a little bit." A feint. "Do you really feel nothing at all?” 

“Of course I feel it, I feel everything, but bearing those feelings and not letting them go to waste is the duty of a Tsukiyama heir,” He even put a hand on his chest to affirm the sincerity of the motion.

Furuta placed upside down the cup he finished cleaning. Quite a resolution, but then again people found resolutions and reasons to fight more often than you would think. It happened all the time in the shonen manga magazine he left rolled up and tucked away below the counter. In that case, he thought, perhaps he should take a page from it himself and try a bit of honesty to get through Tsukiyama's defenses.

Unlike MM-san, his suddenly serious tone was entirely a purposeful choice. “It feels like you’re not a person, or that you aren't meant to be. Like you were born to be something else. Something less." He paused, for emphasis. Even if what he was saying was the truth, as long as he made it into a performance, it didn't really count. "No matter how much other people treat you as disposable or use you, though, you can’t stop being a person.”

“That seems obvious,” Tsukiyama said, completely missing both his point and his acting. Such a difficult customer.

“To you maybe. You were born a ghoul right, Tsukiyama?”

“Of course, a proud ghoul of the Tsukiyama family.”

“Miss Manager in the back, I wonder if she feels the same way.” Furuta’s gloved hands tapped lightly on the counter. “You yourself feel very grateful to be born, but there are some that can’t even manage that. Myself included.”

Never in my life have I ever felt grateful for being born. “That you can keep smiling though, despite how hopelessly stupid or ugly you are Tsukiyama, I’m genuinely impressed. Somebody must have convinced you you were worth something.”

Tsukiyama stared into his black coffee. The surface had long ago settled, there were no more ripples. And yet, Tsukiyama didn't seem to find that any more peaceful. Furuta wondered what kind of meaning he was attempting to draw from the bitter tasting liquid. “My mother died when I was young, I don’t even remember her, but because of that my father promised to love me as much as two parents.”

Furuta wondered if love was supposed to be a measurable quantity like that. If that was the case, then Papa Tsukiyama could easily run out, always trying to give a double serving, even with just one child. What a strange notion. “Then the person you should be asking, is him and not me right?" he said. "After all what would I know about your family? I’m just an outsider looking in," He wiped absently at the counter with a rag, just to prove how little he cared about all this. "Oh, and laughing. Don’t forget about the laughing.”

“I understand.”

“Pointing and laughing.”

“Sì, I get it.” He nodded rapidly, as if to make sure Furuta understood him, or maybe to convince himself that he really did understand. “I have the strangest feeling that’s what you wanted to say from the start, you know you’re a funny gentleman, Furuta.”

Before Furuta could say anything to discredit the terrible claim that Tsukiyama had just made of him, that he was any kind of gentleman, and worse, that he actually had some kind of good intentions with all this, the door opened. Appearing in the doorway, looking as cool as ever was Koori Ui.

Still stylish, but distinctly lacking that untouchable air of confidence he had once had. In fact he looked quite touched. His eyes were nearly sunken in with the dark circles around them. The cigarette that was hanging from his mouth trailed ash as he walked forward, and that seemed like some kind of metaphor for his whole being. He swayed with his steps as he walked, something that might have once been part of his cool attitude, but now just made him look genuinely off balance.

When had all that changed again? Oh yes. What a coincidence, they had just been discussing the Rose operation.

Ui's dark eyes looked from Furuta to Tsukiyama. “I hope you’re not listening too much to him.” My, how the times have changed.

“That’s not fair, Ui boy. I give great advice.” Furuta whined. The people of Goat should be more grateful to him. Maybe one day they'd actually learn something.

“I suppose you’re a good example of what not to do.”

“Haha! That’s right! tell that faker!” came another voice, a child's voice. Hajime had followed in behind Ui, and with the height difference, almost looked to be clinging to the man's hip.

“Oh, if it isn’t little Hajime! I’m glad, the gang is all here.” Furuta clapped his hands together once more. “Let’s have a conversation between men. Wait a minute.” He shoved Roma from behind the counter and she obediently toppled off her stool and onto the floor. You can't wake someone whose only pretending to sleep, after all.

“There, now we’re alone.”

Ui glanced down at Hajime and then back to Furuta. He quirked his lip and raised an eyebrow, even putting up both his hands as if to shield himself from what was to come next. “I’m almost afraid to ask, but what kind of conversation is this.”

“Hey, I’m man enough for a conversation between men,” Hajime piped up. Ui reached out and put a hand on his head to prevent him from getting too excited. How cute.

“The manliest topic of all,” Furuta said as he grabbed both sides of his own face to accentuate his pose. He needed to channel Nico right now to get the point across. “Love…” He said, in a much quieter, shyer voice.

“I don’t really think that’s…” Ui said.

“Ew,” Hajime added on.

“Nonsense!” Tsukiyama shouted, in English for emphasis. “Matters of the heart is the deepest topic a gentleman can contemplate! Lead away, Furuta!” He stood up and gestured with an elegant wave of his hand as if he were conducting some imaginary orchestra. Well, Furuta thought, if he insists.

Furuta dropped his hands and leaned forward, suddenly having moved to just centimeters away from the man, eye to eye. “Do you love Kaneki, Mr. MM?”

He watched as Tsukiyama’s eyes froze, and then his pupils started to shake. All of that talk of his family and he had kept himself composed. Anger had failed to make himexplode. And so, Furuta had thought, he might as well try love. That seemed to be working.

“Now… why… would you ask that?” Tsukiyama said, head tilting back and forth, making him look suddenly loopy.

“It’s only fair," Furuta said.  "I answered your question, now you answer mine. Furuta poked Tsukiyama on the cheek, but the other refused to budge. "Weren’t you the one going on about honor between gentleman?” 

It was Hajime who piped up next. “I love Kaneki! He’s super strong!”

Furuta pulled away and tilted his head instead in Hajime’s direction. “Anything besides that, young Hajime?”

“You don’t get it. He was a human, but he managed to get more strength than any ghoul all on his own. He stole it away from them and made it his own!” It seemed Ui's little head pat had been ineffective. There was something almost frenzied in his eyes as he said those words.

Ui looked over to the still frozen Tsukiyama and sighed. “There’s a ghoul right there you know…” He said in an attempt to be polite.

“He’s okay I guess, but he’s not nearly as cool as Kaneki.”

Furuta chuckled. “All he needs to do is start thinking ghouls are cool as well, and he’ll be truly reformed.” He suddenly slammed his hand on the counter and pointed at Ui. “What about you, Ui my boy?”

“Umm. No?”

“That’s right, the person you love is Hairu!” Oh, so even Hajime had figured that out. 

“Oi, don’t bring her into this.”

“Why do you love her though?”

Ui tilted his head. His eyes looked past him though, past the cafe, even. Truely the look of a man in love. “It’s because she smiles, she always took the train home with me and played games with me, the melon bread we ate in Kanda was so nice.” He seemed almost too sincere to fall victim to the games Furuta was playing. Almost.

Furuta’s finger danced around in the air. “Oh, but lately all she does is frown, the two of you can’t be seen in public together without being arrested, and she can’t even eat melon bread anymore. Are you going to stop loving her then?”

“If it were that shallow, I wouldn't have sunk so deep already.” Just like Tsukiyama, it seemed Ui was harder to rattle then before. Furuta smiled, that was good. They'd be useless if they broke so easily.

Hajime grabbed onto Ui’s sleeve. He looked up with wide eyes. “Hairu’s not a burden, okay…” 

“Ah, I’m sorry I didn’t mean to…”

Now that, Furuta thought, was an interesting development. Before he could think much more on it, though, Roma popped up suddenly from where she lay on the floor.

“Are we talking about Kaneki? I love Kaneki! No matter how much he suffers, he never learns. He’ll always keep fighting. You keep on thinking this time he’ll overcome tragedy. He’s like a never-ending show.” 

Furuta wanted to be exasperated with her for interrupting, but that seemed to be exactly what was needed. She was an old hand at this, after all.

“Shut up, you!” Tsukiyama said. Shouted, really. It seemed all he was holding in suddenly exploded outward. He crossed his arms over his chest as if he were attempting to hold himself back. “Kaneki... he needs me… that’s why-" just those few words seemed to have nearly winded him. "I’ve been at his side all along. I watched him walk away from happiness too many times, away from Anteiku, from those children at the CCG, and each time I was powerless to stop it. I want to be the one who leads him to happiness.”

“So you love Kaneki because you want him to be happy? That’s rather pure, MM-san.” 

Tsukiyama looked down at his own feet. “Oui. I want to make him happy, because I love him.”

It was then Furuta clicked his tongue. “If only you felt that way about poor Karren, she might not have died.”

Tears had been running down his face since he uttered the word love, and when he lifted his head fully, Furuta could see just how pained his expression was.

“You think I don’t know that? Karren is… no longer here. A corpse cannot be happy or sad. All that’s left is Kaneki.”

“Can ghouls really cry like that?” Hajime whispered under his breath up at Ui. Ui shrugged down at him.

“I’ll go… the car.” Tsukiyama said as he committed a terrible taboo, and wiped his face with his own sleeve. Then, he walked out of the cafe.

Ui watched him go, a blank expression on his face. “We walked here…” he muttered.

Once the door had chimed shut, he leaned against it for a moment so he could get a closer look at the face of Furuta Nimura, not that there was anything there to see. “Was that really necessary? Do you just want to tear everyone down like that?”

“Not everyone,” Furuta said back with a smile. Ui looked incredulous. “Hey, I mean it. I didn’t want to disappoint you at least, Ui. When you said those words to me, 'stand up like a Washuu…' or something like that, I didn’t hate it.”

“I was just saying what was appropriate at the time.”

“If I could control it, if I could set the destination x on the treasure map, I really would want Hairu to come back to you happily. Unlike the rest of us garden children, it seems like she really had someone who genuinely cared. How strange.”

Ui hesitated for a moment. “The rest of us garden children?”

Furuta closed his eyes. “Nevermind.”

“Hairu’s already back you know, she’s with me.”

“I suppose she is.”

Ui started to shake in the same way that Tsukiyama had a moment ago. Rather than say anything more, he simply grabbed Hajime by the arm. “Put it on our tab, I need a smoke.” And with that, he dragged the boy out with him. 

And now for the main event, Furuta thought to himself. 

He walked over to the back room door, pulling it open to reveal the eavesdropping Touka pressed against it. She stumbled forward for a moment and caught herself by slamming her foot hard on the ground. Furuta smirked. “So what do you think about MM-san’s feelings?”

Touka looked away. “I don’t see how that’s any of my business.”

Roma popped up once again. “Hey, hey, Sou-chan. You like Kaneki, don’t you?”

Furuta sighed. Now she was just being troublesome.“I like him about as much as I like myself." He turned back to Touka. "How about you, Touka?”

She bit on her lip, and looked for a second like she was trying to map a way out of this. Hesitantly, she answered. “Ever since… he told me that he’d be sad if I died, I guess.”

“Whoa, talk about low standards.” That was insensitive, but then, Furuta tended to be.

“Well," she said, "what would you feel if I died?”

“I’d be happy,” Furuta said, plainly.

She glared at him.

“I’d be happy for you," he clarified. "You’d be cured of the sickness of living, after all.”

Touka quieted for a moment. “Do you really think like that?”

Furuta closed his eyes again. His expression looked almost peaceful for once and, for once, was not entirely an act. “I really do.” The only time he would look genuinely peaceful was in his grave. If a nobody like him was even going to get one.

“Sucks to be you, I guess,” Touka said, and pushed past him back into the back room.

"So mean, Sou-chan," Roma cooed.

Furuta ignored Roma and kept his eyes on Touka instead. “Kaneki’s so fortunate, to be surrounded by so much love." The line of his smirk flattened and he spoke in a way that he knew Touka would hear him. "How many people does he need head over heels in love with him, though? Is he looking to build a harem?”

♔

Kaneki is a kind person, who values life and protects others. That was the image of Kaneki held in Touka's mind. How fortunate that Ui and Tsukiyama wandered into the cafe to help Furuta figure that out.

Because knowing the shape Kaneki had in her heart made it easier to understand the dimensions of the growing cavern between them. And it seemed Kaneki had noticed, as well. The next few days, Kaneki showed up at the cafe every day. He would stay for awhile, and chat pleasantly with Touka about nothing, and occasionally, as was his nature, Furuta would pipe up with his trademark witty banter, just to keep things lively. And whenever Touka would respond in kind, he noticed, Kaneki’s expression would harden, so long as he thought she wouldn’t see. 

There’s a hole and you won’t always be around to fill it. Kaneki thought that visiting like this, using this as his escape from whatever kingly business he was up to the rest of the time, would heal that gap. But it was just making it more obvious. And the way Kaneki looked at him, Furuta realized, meant Kaneki had started to figure that part out, too. It was only a matter of time before that space was no longer his to fill.

Kaneki is a stubborn, selfish, and desperately lonely person. That was the image of Kaneki that Furuta held. It was something he was well acquainted with, and so he was confident that he knew how this would continue to play out.

He wasn’t expecting Kaneki to break from his pattern. But one day, he arrived at the cafe as usual and instead of asking for Touka he asked to speak to Furuta directly. He seemed almost happy, which, despite how he tried to seem in from of Touka, was another difference from the usual. And he was carrying a book in his hands. That too, was different.

“Follow me,” Kaneki said, “if you would.” Half an order, half a request. Well, he had surrendered to this new king after all. Perhaps he’d be able to understand what had put His Majesty in such unusually high spirits.

But this seemed to be something to show, rather than tell. He followed Kaneki for quite awhile, never quite succeeding in getting his old partner into any kind of actual conversation. Eventually, he resigned himself to the silence.

Finally, Kaneki spoke, and Furuta wasn’t sure the last time he’d seen this genuine a smile on the other’s face when it wasn’t being directed at Touka. It was almost unnerving. “I wanted to help you, Furuta.”

No, scratch that. It was definitely unnerving. Kaneki took the book he was holding and held it out to Furuta. He had no choice but to take it.

Furuta turned it over in his hands and read the cover. _No Longer Human_ by Osamu Dazai. Furuta quite liked books, and he was sure he had read this one before, though, he could not remember when. He remembered enough to know it was far from a self-help book for newly minted half-ghouls, despite its title. “Are you giving me recommendations? I don’t see why we had to do that all the way out here.”

But Kaneki just smiled that unnervingly enthusiastic smile.

“Sou-chan.” 

He heard a voice call out from behind him, and Furuta figured it all out in that instant. Kaneki must be moving Rize in order to keep her still hidden from V. It was a smart move. And he hated it because it meant he saw none of this coming. 

“I smell you again. You smell so good.”

Fuck. To be caught off guard by the same trap a second time. Dammit.

“You should read to her,” said Kaneki.

Furuta looked down at the book. His gloved hands were shaking. He tried to steady them, but he knew it was pointless. It was far too late to prepare himself for anything. “I... don’t think I can.”

“You haven’t even tried yet, Furuta.” And how Furuta wished he would sound mocking or cruel right now, instead of this strange gentleness. “Aren’t you always looking down on others for being held back by their feelings.”

That’s different, he wanted to say. But it really wasn’t. Self-awareness could only get him so far. And this was so much farther than he would ever willingly go. 

“I thought you wanted to marry her. How are you going to do that, if you can’t even look at her right now?”

There was plenty Furuta could have fired back with, maybe, if he had had time to prepare and a good kilometer of distance, but right now, he could hardly think. He wished Kaneki would shut up, would go away and carry on with his million and one kingly duties that had to be more important than this, whatever this was, but instead he drew closer and gently pushed on the book as if he was trying to be encouraging.

Furuta tightened his fingers around the book, and spoke in a voice so dry it was cracked. “Fine…”

Opening the container was a slow process. Or maybe it just felt that way, rooted to the spot as he was, completely unable to move. He’d seen this before. Ghouls and humans alike frozen stupidly because their brains couldn’t pick between fight or flight. But knowing that did nothing for him, here.

The doorway was the only source of light. Distantly, Furuta thought about Plato’s allegory of the cave, of shadows of flowers dancing against a dimly lit wall, swaying in the illusion of wind. It must get so dark in here.

Kaneki had piled countless books around the edges, but besides that, the container was empty.Except for Rize herself, bound in a straight jacket, but Furuta could not look at her. 

Mechanically, he cracked the book open and began to read in a low voice. “Mine has been a life of much shame. I can’t even guess myself what it must be to live the life of a human being.” He swallowed, but his throat had gone completely dry and all it did was make him feel more like he was being torn apart from the inside.

_“Sou-chan, what are you doing? Everybody else is playing.”_

_“One of the scientists gave me this. It’s a book.”_

_“What’s a scientoast?”_

_“Nevermind.”_

_“I want to play hide and seek like we usually do.”_

_“That’s no fun, you always find me right away.”_

_“That’s because you smell so good!”_

_“...”_

_“Hey, is it fun to read?”_

_“It’s not boring I guess. Wait, they haven’t taught you yet?”_

_“There’s no need for us to learn how to read.”_

_“I- I’ll read aloud. 'Melos was enraged. He resolved to do whatever he must to rid the land of that evil and ruthless king.'”_

_She leaned her head against his shoulder and stared at the symbols she did not understand. Don’t worry Rize, he thought. I’ll teach you how to read one day. “Melos had no mother or father, nor a wife of his own. He lived with his younger sister, a shy girl of sixteen who was soon to be wed to a certain true and honest herdsman.”_

_Until then, anytime you need me to, I can read to you like this._

The book fell from his hands. Furuta doubled over, and threw up. He had not eaten today, hadn’t eaten in a while, so there was nothing to it but coffee and stomach juices. Furuta clenched his hands into gloved fists, willing himself not to fall completely to pieces.

Kaneki must have heard because he came in from the opening and put a hand on Furuta’s shoulder. Furuta wrenched away. He wanted to tear off the parts of himself that Kaneki touched. Sleeve to his mouth, he got up onto shaky unsteady legs. He was going to be sick again if he stayed here. Was going to turn inside out entirely. He turned around, and made the mistake of catching one last fleeting look at Rize before running off.

When he burst through the cafe doors again, Roma was mopping up. He didn’t remember how he’d managed to get back to the cafe, but somehow he must have.

“Oh, Sou-chan, what’s wrong?” Roma said as she dropped her mop right to the ground, taking any excuse not to actually work.

Furuta winced at the name, but threw himself into his next motion as if stopping even for one second would be disastrous. Maybe it would. He kicked off his own shoe and tore off one of his polka dot socks violently. He stuck his hand inside of it and made a puppet once more. 

“I’m Haise Sas-socky! More like Haise sa-sucky!” He laughed, hollow and breathless. From running all the way here, is all. He must have gotten quite out of shape spending all his time in this cafe.

Roma tilted her head for a half second, trying to parse the situation, before she kicked off her shoes, and pulled down the tights she was wearing underneath her uniform skirt. She rose up with her tights dangling from one hand. “Oh yeah well I’m… Roma Hoitight!”

“I want to lead a ghoul revolution for the sake of all of my friends.”

“Oooh, sounds good! can I watch?”

He was oddly grateful for her right now and her willingness to indulge these sort of antics. Somehow his hand wasn’t shaking as Sas-socky continued.

“Then, I’m going to leave all of them behind. Except for when I need them!”

“You’ll never receive their love that way. You’ll feel so alone!”

“They’re still going to love me, though! No matter what I do they’ll always love me!”

“Oh my poor dear, their love is going to waste!”

Whatever drama the two of them were enacting though, with Furuta as the main character and Roma as the greek chorus was interrupted by the cafe door opening once more. Touka walked in, carrying too many shopping bags for even a ghoul to hold. “I called for you guys five times, what were you doing?” She saw them both holding sock puppets in their hands, kneeling behind the counter to use it as a stage. “Well, that’s pretty much what I expected.” She closed the door behind her with a kick.

Furuta hopped over the counter before any of the bags could spill out of her hand. “Let me take that, Touka.” He chimed in a voice happier than normal. He followed her all the way to the back room carrying those bags. Touka made sure to close the door behind them.

“So, what’s wrong?” She asked directly.

“Hmm, nothing. Why do you think something’s wrong?”

“Well, the puppet show… but also the fact that you were so nice when I first walked in.”

“You’re so sharp, Miss Kirishima, please cut me to ribbons.” Furuta crooned at her once more.

Touka simply pulled a towel from nearby (this was a cafe after all), and pressed it to his collar. There was still vomit stuck to it, Furuta had not even noticed. “Hmm, I’m not in the mood today. So what happened?” She asked again.

Furuta winced. She might get annoying soon. “Kaneki took me to see Rize again.”

“How did that go?”

“I puked my guts out.”

“So you were as smooth as ever, huh?” She removed the towel, but kept her hands on his lapels. Furuta did not know why. “Do you really think it’d be better if I was dead.”

“I really don’t know. I only know for myself.” Furuta said, tilting his head at a sickly angle. At this low light, his cheeks truly looked hollow for the first time. That was what weeks of near starvation produced.

“You and Kaneki look the same, you both look like you could die any moment.” Touka stood up on her tip toes. She leaned towards him slowly, closing her eyes. Of course she did not leave much of a choice for him as she forcefully jerked him forward. “Even f the whole world would be better off, I’d be sad if you died though.”

_Furuta had misremembered his game of hide and seek with Rize._

_It was not._

_“But then I’d die.”_

_“Yep, you’d die.”_

_Rather, she said it first. “I want to eat you but, but then you’d die.”_

_Furuta merely smiled and echoed it back in a songlike voice. “Yep, then I’d die.”_

Touka’s lips collided with his polka dot sock. Furuta looked down at her, his eyes dull. “Touka, I’m not like Kaneki at all. When I hurt you, I’ll do it on purpose. Don’t you remember what I did to the one woman I ever loved?”

Touka’s eyes suddenly filled with tears at the rejection, or perhaps just the smell of his sweat stained sock. He hoped the latter was the case. “So what? I’m a bad person too! I kill people! I look down on other ghous even though I killed people too! I… I let my brother run away. I’m a bad person.”

Furuta shook his head. He reached forward and with a gloved hand, wiped the tear from her eye. He was not trying to be gentle. This was condescension. “You’re cute.”

The door opened while the two of them talked. Kaneki came to apologize to Furuta, but neither of them noticed. Not until the door swung open again and Kaneki ran out of the cafe. Furuta turned his head to watch the king dash away.

It was a good fast dash, faster than even his nimudash.

“Kaneki!” Touka’s head turned around so violently that her tears shook from her face. She was still crying, her makeup even had begun to run. Furuta noticed just now that two of her eyes were exposed, that she only bothered to do makeup for one of the. He was staring at the rich details of her face, perhaps for too long.

She almost ran off too. Furuta grabbed her by the shoulder. “This is my fault. I’ll bring him back.”

♔

“My king!”

Furuta said in a cheerful voice. They stood alone in some unrecognizable alleyway, the kind that ghouls preyed upon innocent humans in. He leaned against the back wall, his entire body curled forward. When Furuta tilted his head down, he could see tears streaming down Kaneki’s face.

“Why did I let you live, Rank 1 Furuta?” Kaneki said, after sniffling and sucking in a great deal of air to cover up the noise of his crying.

“I don’t think either of us know the answer to that question,” He responded, genuinely cheerful because it involved the topic of his own death.

“I thought you knew everything?”

“I just pretend to.”

Kaneki raised his head. The tears that were dripping down his face, fell onto the tar beneath them. “I- I’ll be so lonely without her.”

So that’s why you took me to see Rize, Furuta thought. He wasn’t angry though. He felt nothing, nothing at all when he looked at Kaneki’s crying face. Still, he spoke more gently than normal. “She hasn’t gone anywhere, my silly king. She’s waiting for you back at the cafe, she always is.”

Furuta reached out to put a hand on his shoulder. The next moment, he heard something crack. Oh, Furuta thought as he moved his head to the side to dodge Kaneki’s fist. “How many people have you killed?”

“Countless.” Furuta said as he whipped his head in the other direction to avoid the next fist.

“Stop smiling. You’re not above this.”

Furuta’s floppy hair raised as he dodged another blow. He was starting to get tired out.

“You’re just a murderer! You’re going to hurt Touka, too!” Furuta hesitated for just a moment, and when he did, Kaneki’s fist flew right into his jaw. He felt himself thrown backwards. His body felt made of paper at that moment.

As he collided with the ground, he coughed up ink. It did not matter to him much if Kaneki decided he was going to kill him right here. He was a book. He was that book he tried to read to Rize. He was not born to be a human being.

“You can’t just take over something. You can’t fool people into thinking you’re some terrible victim who should be pitied or helped. YOu ruin everything. You keep lying sooner or later everyone is going to figure out and then what will happne, huh? Where wwill we be then. It’s what you want, isn’t it? I can just get rid of you now so I don’t have to deal with you anymore.” Kaneki slammed his fist besides Furuta’s head. The ground cracked beneath his ears. He heard it, just before his eardrum popped.

“You won’t be strong enough. Everybody will pull away. They’ll disappear. Then you’ll disappear.” Kaneki reached forward and wrapped his fingers around Furuta’s throat. It tickled, almost, and then it hurt. “It’s better that way though…I can just be the one eyed king all the time. No one needs Kaneki ken. Just die already... die… me. Die… myself.”

Furuta’s vision started to blur. A pity, he wanted to see the face Kaneki was making right now. “This is real you know,” Furuta spoke up. “I’ll really die…” He felt his ribs start to crack from the force of Kaneki pressing down on them as he sat on his chest. “I’m not you… Kaneki.”

What a pleasant idea. With the last of his breath, Furuta started to laugh.

“STOP LAUGHING. STOP IT. JUST SHUT UP AND DIE. I DON’T WANT TO LISTEN TO YOU ANYMORE. JUST LEAVE ME ALONE.”

“You shouldn’t shout… you don’t know who will overhear,” Furuta said, right before his eyes rolled back in his head. In his fleeting moments of sight, he saw the silhouette of Touka. Perhaps it was his own whiting out, but she really did look like an angel for a moment.

♔

“Did you beat up Kaneki?” Furuta asked the moment he regained consciousness.

“That’s none of your business,” Touka said pursing her lips. She instructed him to sit up and he did. Her hands traveled over his body and unbuttoned his shirt. She saw the bruises that Kaneki had left, and went to fetch a cold rag to press against them. “If you ate then your body would heal better.”

Furuta looked around. They were in the barebones bedroom that Touka let him stay in. This place still smelled of Kaneki, but since they both shared Rize’s kagune, it smelled like him as well. Furuta could not blame the boy for mistaking Furuta for a double of himself. “Now, where would the fun in that be?”

Touka pinched at his ribs, eliciting an ow! “I don’t think it’s fun.” She said sternly. Kaneki’s fists were hard. He was the strongest ghoul on the planet after all, and Furuta was a starving half life. His body was covered in gashes, and his bones bruised. When Touka told him to take his entire shirt off, Furuta obeyed. Slowly, she wrapped bandages around him.

For a moment afterwards though, her hands lingered right at the place around his ribs. Furuta tilted his head. “What are you thinking about?” He asked.

“The advice you gave me earlier…”

“What advice?” Just this once he was not playing dumb.

Touka leaned forward and kissed him. Furuta allowed it, the same way he had allowed Ami to kiss him. He closed his eyes and tried to think of elsewher. It seemed he was not even allowed to do that, as Touka was so eager she suddenly pushed him forward.

He fell backwards on the bed, and she climbed over him. Furuta tried his best to move his creaky body in a way that would accommodate her. In that moment, their faces got closer than Furuta intended. He opened his eyes and saw. Neither of their hairstyles could conceal both of their eyes.

His eyes however wandered down. Her shirt was button up, with a Y printed over and over again just around the collar. Though that was not where he looked. “Hey, can I touch them?” He asked point blank. “I’ll let you touch mine in return.”

Touka tilted her head away to hide the redness of her face. “Pass… but, you can touch me if you want.”

Furuta let one hand venture forth. He gave a gentle squeeze. “Ami’s were bigger you know, and bouncier too.”

“You’re such a disgusting person,” Touka said, closing her eyes. She was the one who kissed him though. Really, some women.

Even though she said pass a moment ago, she took him up on his offer reaching out to the scar around his shoulder. A wound that refused to heal even before he stopped eating. “It’s an incision mark.” He helpfully informed her. “I’m Kanou’s last test subject. Do you want me to explain it?”

“Now really isn’t the time for that.” Touka said, as he reached for the bottom of her shirt, her arms crossing to grab the bottoms. She pulled it up over her head. Only to get stuck for just a moment.

“Haha, such a virgin!” Furuta laughed.

Touka leaned forward, and placed her head against his chest. She blew out a puff of air in frustration. Furuta giggled again. “Ah, wait no. I’m ticklish there.”

Touka smirked. Right as his scar, she kissed him. To Furuta it felt like the wings of a butterfly brushing up against his chest repeatedly. How annoying. Right then, he reached out putting a hand on each of Touka’s sides. “Tickle tickle,” he said in respond, laying back all the way finally and pulling her on top of him.

The serious looking Touka, burst out in an uncontrollable fit of giggles. Furuta thought she looked better that way. As she looked down at him from on top, she pressed a hand against his rib cage, still covered in bandages. “You look so thin, like a beanpole.”

“Is it unattractive to you?”

“Very.”

“How nice!” Furuta said with a smile. “Kanou was right, I need some more meat on me.”

“Can you stop bringing that guy up in this situation?”

“What situation?” Furuta pretended to be oblivious once more. Touka leaned down and kissed him as a way of answering his question. As they started to kiss again, Furuta’s hands were practiced enough he knew where to hold her. Slowly they traveled up her body, until they found her bra strap. Not that he particularly cared but he found that as they rubbed against each other their clothing was getting in the way.

She seemed to be catching on the same hint. Touka placed a leg in between his two, sliding it against him. It rubbed against his crotch. Furuta squeaked, when he had not meant to. Oh, so she noticed. “Are you going to keep making noises like that?”

“Oh definitely.”

Touka smiled. “It’s quite cute. You squeak just like a rat.” She leaned in, and kissed his collar rather than his lips. If only so she could bury herself in it in the next moment. “You smell so nice…” She said softly, as she massaged his collarbone with another kiss.

I smell like, Kaneki.

Furuta closed his eyes.

This should be fine, he thought.

Much later when Touka was asleep in bed next to him, he reached out to brush her hair away so he could not see both of her eyes.

As long as she does not love me, this will be fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Koori Ui and Take Hirako finally have a long conversation next week.


	11. stYle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shio Ihei is just a kid.

Shio always wondered, how flowers grew all the way down here.

Unlike the flowers though, the man standing in front of him wilted. Every garden child knew his name, even though his face, the haphazard, sewn together mess that it was seemed to change every time you looked at it.

Kaiko’s head tilted at Shio, looking down at him at an odd angle, or perhaps he was looking at him straight on it was difficult to tell. Normally he felt more chatty, but not at this moment. Children needed to be seen and not heard sometimes, children of the garden however needed to be neither seen nor heard.

“Straighten up child, haven’t they taught you better at the garden?”

Shio immediately did as he was told. If anybody else were giving the order, he might have been tempted to mouth off. Still, he did not want to seem afraid. Fear could be a weakness. He reached up and scratched at the back of his neck, right where his soft blue hairline ceased.

“Aha, you should know mister, manners aren’t really a part of the curriculum.” Anything to do with the real world was left out of their education. Yusa told him so once. Yusa seemed to care more about that sort of thing.

“Boy, do you really think I called you here to discuss your curriculum?” Kaiko was quick to lose his patience, and when he did he slammed the black blade he carried with him on the floor. The clack the sheathe made in contact with the ground sent a shiver down Shio’s spine.

If it were possible to straighten his spine anymore, he would. Though, it was likely he would have to go the opposite direction and begin to bend down onto the ground. Either staring Kaiko down or bowing in front of him, both options were unpleasant so Shio did nothing. When he saw the man’s blank eyes staring at him though, Shio realized he should answer. “N-n-n-no,” he stuttered out, his voice faltering with his shaking body.

“Do you think you’d be good with a blade like this?” Kaiko asked.

“Uh, well actually I prefer to use two blades instead of one. It’s cooler don’t you think?”

Kaiko did not answer to his question.

Shio realized he said something wrong. “I-in a battle though, I’ll probably have to use whatever weapon is available for me to kill the enemy, so I shouldn’t be so picky.”

Kaiko’s hands loosened around the sword. He reached up to his hat instead, tipping it upward, revealing more of his shadowed face. Shio wanted to look away, but at the same time did not want to leave any kind of opening in front of this man. “What about me? Do you think if I gave you this, you could kill me?”

Shio was not a dreamer like Yusa. The outside world might as well have been a completely empty void of white. Yet, even he could not stop himself from imagining, cutting Kaiko down and stepping over his body. If he were as strong as Arima, then maybe he could take down all the reinforcements too, and run outside covered in blood. Shio liked that image. It was like a movie. He got to watch those, sometimes.

Even Arima never escaped the garden though. So, if Arima could not do it, it must have been impossible. Shio quickly shook his head. “No sir, people like us can never kill humans you know that. Otherwise we’re no better than them.”

Them. Ghouls.

Us.

Shio knew what them was, but he did not quite know us. The people of the garden, they were us… maybe.. But what exactly were they?

Him and Kaiko, were they together both us? Part of Shio hoped not. He was still young, and he was sure he was quite cute, he did not want to grow up to be that ugly. Oh, he shouldn’t think something like that in case Kaiko really could hear his thoughts.

Kaiko smiled underneath the shadowy brim of his hat. At least, Shio thought it was a smile. “That’s a good answer, not particularly bold but… it’s better than that brat Nimura.”

What did Furuta do? Shio wanted to ask. Those who grew up in the garden knew better to ask questions. There were a few rumors of course, it was strange, Arima Kishou was billed as a top investigator and allowed to work at the CCG. The only other two who had received that honor were Hairu Ihei, and Furuta Nimura. Hairu was billed as a prodigy similiar to Arima, but Furuta was pushed aside with no greater honor than doing some creepy looking man’s paperwork.

Serving in the CCG was the ultimate honor to those who grew up in the garden. The vast majority of them were only ever allowed to operate in secret, wearing black suits just like Kaiko. Furuta must have been punished then, to be allowed into the CCG but forced to toil away in obscurity anywaa.

It made Shio even more curious to what he had done. He still could not ask. What a shame. Shio wheezed, nervously. “I-is that good sir?”

“Of the five in your class, you’re the youngest. Your scores are inferior in every area except one.”

Shio knew the one he was talking about. The kind of hands on experience garden children received that regular academy students never would.

“I would say that makes you more suited for my line of work but…” Shio’s eyes began to shake. It was around this time that the fate of the garden children were decided. He only lived one fourth of a human life so… technically he had completed as much of his life as a fifty year old human. “I’m not allowed to disagree with the choice of Arima Kishou.”

Shio’s mouth held agape. “What?”

“He’s chosen you, the decision has been made to move a few more garden children up to serve in the CCG as active duty. As you are the only ones capable of keeping up with him.”

Kaiko said a few, but he really meant all of them. Only five had lived long enough to make it this far. Shio was sure there was more to begin with. He thought he remembered. The branches of the Washuu family were vast. Him and Ihei had the same last name, but they weren’t even closely related.

He also knew a lot of family members disappeared. Hairu was the only relative he ever met even as far off as she was… then there was Rika and… wait, what did he say?

“Arima… he asked for me?” Shio’s eyes began to tear up.

Kaiko shook his head. “I have no idea why he chose you, if you’re going to make that kind of face.”

This was the part where Shio kneeled down. For the first time in his life though, he felt grateful. There was no need to beg as he fell to his knees holding his face.

“You will never show your face on ccg premises. You will be assigned an apartment to stay at, but you will not wander off. You will not give away your name or your age. Your rank will be considered Rank 3. You will not be formally introduced to the CCG in the same manner as an actually talented prospect like Hairu Ihei. You will stay in the shadows.”

Kaiko listed condition after condition, but Shio could not hear a single one of them. At least not until that man’s name was mentioned again.

“You will obey Arima Kishou always. It is only because of him, that you may taste the outside air. Do you understand?”

Shio breathed in deeply. Even though there were flowers at his feet the air down here did not taste fresh at all. “Nobody here could say no to Arima… he’s… he’s…”

Kaiko looked annoyed, as he pulled his hat back down under his face. “I know there’s at least one person here who has.”

Make your preparations he said. You’ll be gone by tomorrow. Shio wondered for a moment what he could possibly prepare, when he was leaving absolutely nothing behind him.

♔

“She can’t leave us behind!” Shio looked like a kid who cried easily (blame his cute and handsome face that belied a more sensitive soul) but this was only the second time in recent memory he could remember crying.

He was sure at some point he did. He must have cried for his mother. All of the garden kids did. He just forgot about it by now. All of them grew numb too, or perhaps they just ran out of tears.

He tried to run out the door and after Hairu, only for Rikai to grab him by the hood and yank him back like a dog on a chain. He fell off of his feet and onto the ground with the sudden force of the tug.

“Do you really want to hold her back, idiot?” Rikai said, looking at him with as serious an expression as ever. Hairu was following in Arima’s path. It had just been confirmed that she would leave the zero squad and debut as a named investigator. Ui would leave the squad with her at the same time, and mentor her as a special class.

That was the path they all dreamed of. It was the exact same path Arima carved for them, leaving the garden at fourteen, being introduced as a named investigator, partnered and mentored by a special class like Aura.

There were still things they would not be allowed to do, like leave the CCG for instance. Yusa might be disappointed by that. For Shio though, it was enough for everyone around him to applaud. Instead of being looked at as an object of scorn, they would all look and see him as needed.

When he thought of Hairu leaving to pursue that path though, he did not feel pride or admiration, like something empty was at the pit of his stomach. He could have just been hungry, he thought as he wrapped his arms around his sides. “No but… wasn’t she happy here?”

Rikai looked at him, and even Yusa looked too away from the distance he tended to zone off into. Neither of them had an answer for that question.

“Weren’t we all happy here… we were a…”

The word Shio was about to utter was forbidden for them, but he had always been reckless. He stopped though, when Rikai kicked his back. His words turned to coughing instead, and an ache in his back.

“No we weren’t. You and Hairu aren’t even… you’re about as related to her, as Yusa is to Arima.” She stood over Shio, leaning close in order to make her point. Their faces a few inches away. “Even Arima and Furuta are brothers you know, but they’re as different as night and day, and not family at all.”

If being born as closely related as brothers did not make you family, then Shio wondered what did? Before he could say anything else, the door cracked open. Take’s blank face appeared inside the opening.

“I heard a noise, is everything alright?”

Even on the floor Shio smiled. “It’s nothing sir, we were just roughhousing. We’re antsy for the next mission.”

Take’s face did not change. Sometimes, Shio thought his eyes looked just like eggs. They were the right shape, and completely blank. He snickered about that thought to himself, as the door closed. It was a good thing Take was the type not to pay attention though, because they could get in trouble if they were caught talking about the garden, even if it was just between the three of them.

Rikai crossed her arms. “I don’t get you, what are you doing?”

“The same as you did for me, making sure I didn’t cause trouble,” Shio tried his best to smile. However, in his young and handsome eyes, there were still tears shining.

“That’s not it, you were just being loud as usual.” Rikai looked at the door in front of them. “I’m going to go say goodbye to Hairu. Shio, you shouldn’t miss your chance, you never know…” She did not finish that sentence, but any child from the garden would know exactly what she meant. The door slammed behind her.

Yusa said nothing for awhile. He was staring out the window again, dreamlike. The other two hooded members of their squad said nothing either, but then again that pair rarely talked. Some kids came out of the garden like that, Shio was surprised they survived this long.

Yusa finally sighed and looked back to him once more “Rikai wasn’t saying that to be mean.”

Shio nodded. “I know…” He reached and tugged at Yusa’s sleeve to get even more of his ever-wandering attention. “Hey, what do you think family is like when you’re the only member of the Souzu left?”

Yusa shrugged in an empty way. “How am I supposed to know?” Unlike Shio, who was kind, polite, and also handsome, Yusa was rude on occasion. Shio still liked him though. Shio was also benevolent, and a good friend, on top of all of those other qualities he previously listed.

He realized though, that he was not going to get his answers here. Shio opened the door to follow after Rikai. When he finally caught up to her, he was treated to an unexpected sight. Now Rikai curled herself up on her knees, tears streaming from her face as Hairu bent down to comfort her. Even the always serious and quiet Rikai could make a face like that.

When she saw Shio though, she pulled her hood back up over her head. It took Hairu a moment to notice. When she did she tried to smile. The smile Hairu gave on a day to day basis though was nothing like the smiles she gave on extermination operations. Shio noticed details like that sometimes, perhaps because he was the same way.

“Is there something you wanted to ask me too, Shio?”

Shio tried to be mature, but he was only thirteen so instead he blurted loudly, the first thing that immediately came to mind. “Do you like Ui more than us now?”

Hairu shook her head. “Koor- I mean Ui is different. I need to use him as a stepping stone to get what I really want.”

“What’s that?” Shio blurted out, even faster this time.

“The same thing you want Shio, the same thing we all want.” Shio looked around the office they shared. After making the announcement that Hairu would be leaving, Arima Kishou had not even come to say goodbye.

“Is that so? Ui’s going to be disappointed then.”

It was this remark that made Hairu tilt her head a little bit. Her small mouth was agape for a moment, “Wha? What are you talking about? I’m good enough to be Ui’s mentee.”

“Not like that,” Shio felt concerned for Hairu for a moment.

Rikai however, had collected herself. Her hood still on, she grabbed Shio by the arm and began to pull him away. “Let’s leave Hairu alone, she’s a little oblivious…”

“What do you mean oblivious, hey!” Shio said as he struggled against Rikai before the door was slammed behind him.

“You’re a little oblivious too, perhaps it’s an Ihei trait.”

Hairu left alone, puffed out her cheeks by filling them with air. “I’m not oblivious,” She muttered. “That’s no way to talk to your superiors.” Though, she really did have no idea what they were talking about.

♔

“Why the hell would we do that for you?” Rikai protested.

“Because, I was always meant to rise to the top so you two should support me.” Shio said in his confident voice. The same confidence he used to order Rikai and Yusa to kneel in front of him so they could be stepping stones for him spying through the window.

Rikai refused, but Yusa after quietly looking at him for a moment, immediately got onto his knees without a word. “No, don’t indulge him like this!” Rikai snapped in the background, but neither of the boys seemed to hear.

Shio was right to worry when Hairu left. It was not right away, but eventually, she died. Boo. However, now she was back. Yay. Arima put his faith in the right man after all, Kaneki carried her all the way back to their base like a newborn baby.

He wanted to see her again, the reborn Hairu. However, Take forbid him from speaking with her. Boo. He knew the reason why though, it was because the first time Ui spoke to her she attacked him with a kagune.

Hairu crossed the border that none of the garden children were ever supposed to cross. They needed to fight their ghoul nature at all times, but Hairu became a ghoul.

He still wanted to see her though. Even though Rikai told him off for disobeying an order, she still came along as well. Underneath him, Yusa struggled, and Shio’s small hand reached up to the window pane as he tried to peer through it.

Hairu did not notice him. She sat on the bed, books piled around her. Her entire attention was on the door. He wondered if she could hear something outside of it. Suddenly, it opened, and Shio worried he was caught. Only for Ui to walk in.

The only thing he noticed in the room was Hairu. His entire attention stayed on her. It figured. Shio knew it was none of his business, but as he was well trained at being both unseen and unheard, he could not help but want to eavesdrop.

“I’m home, Hairu,” Ui said in a soft voice. Shio could see his attempts to smile even though blood spattered across his cheeks, and sweat dripped down his face. Just like him, Ui showed the attributes of a natural charmer.

“Welcome home, K-” Hairu raised her head to greet him. Shio saw the ribbon tied around her neck then. The injury he read about only in reports. She too, tried to smile, though hers faded quickly when she saw the condition he was in.

Ui leaned in to try and see her drooping face. When he could not, he walked slowly across the room and sat on the bed next to her. Shio could see it even from where he spied. A small distance between their hands as they sat on the bed together. Ui tilted his head towards her further, trying to see her face again. “Is something wrong?” He asked.

“K-koori,” Hairu choked back something, but what it was Shio did not know. He could not imagine somebody as strong as Hairu crying, she was supposed to be the best of them right after Arima. Unlike a clumsy and fumbling person like himself (those traits were okay for him to have though because they added to his charm). “You look like death…” Hairu muttered finally, her hair covering her eyes.

“That’s fair,” Ui said passively. Now, he averted his eyes away from her. Shio wondered why. Ui always seemed eager to watch Hairu. He always caught her eye, and even when he could not he stared at her from behind. He thought he was sneaky about it, but he could not escape the observations of a quick-witted person like Shio. “I… killed people you know. The ones you’ve been eating all along, and it wasn’t because I believed in what Kaneki said, or Take, or even if this was what Arima wanted all along.”

Hairu’s eyes widened then. She could no longer afford to look at her feet. She reached out and grabbed him by the shoulder, twisting his entire body to face her. “Why? Why would you do that?”

“It was for you. I wanted you to continue to live, even if it meant you had to eat others. I’m no better than a ghoul, I guess.” Ui still tried to smile. On his beaten and bloodied face, it looked to be the only thing holding him together.

“I don’t want you to do that,” Hairu said directly, her hand tightening around the fabric of his shirt. Shio could tell she lost control of herself, because it began to tear between her delicate fingers. “I’m not worth that… I’d rather.”

Ui’s eyes widened. He looked like he might shatter to pieces if she finished that sentence. “If Arima told you to live, would you be happy?”

Hairu looked silently for a long time. Shio knew the place she looked was no longer at Ui Koori, but rather to their own past in the garden. Arima was the hope of all garden children, Ui never understood that. Shio did not want Ui to understand either. Ui looked at them like humans, the only one that still did.

Did Hairu think the same? Shio wondered. Rikai said that they were not truly family, so perhaps it was rude of him to claim he could understand. He could still be rude sometimes, he was a precocious child after all.

“Yes…” Hairu finally said, but once again she looked at Ui. She looked ashamed from that answer? Why? Perhaps because Hairu was a little more grown up than him, adults were confusing.

Ui kept smiling. The smile he wore right now did not reassure Shio at all. He started to feel uneasy looking at it through the glass window pane. “You know, Arima killed a lot of people too, or ghouls rather. Ghouls just like the ones who saved your life, the ones taking care and protecting us now. He killed them indiscriminately, not for your sake Hairu, but just because he was ordered to.”

He didn’t have a choice, Shio wanted to say. Hairu did not even bother to defend him. She simply murmured under her breath like a child might, “I know that.”

“Then, I don’t understand what’s the difference between him and I?”

It’s not something you would understand.  
It’s not something you can work hard to change.  
You shouldn’t even want to.  
You were born different.  
You were born better.  
You were born whole.  
You’re so lucky you get to be born human, why are you acting like this Ui?  
Why chain yourself to unfortunate people like us?

Shio tried to remain the happy and bright youth he was supposed to be. As he looked at the expression on Hairu’s face though, his head once again filled with all kinds of thoughts. He gripped the side of his head trying to shut them out.

“Shut up! You can’t be like him!” Hairu snapped and raised her voice. Just at that moment, Hajime followed in holding a tray with fresh meat.

The sight of Hairu shouting nearly caused him to drop the tray. Funny, Shio thought that Hajime loved the sound of screaming. Well, when he looked at the pained expression on Hajime’s face, not much younger than his own, Shio realized it wasn’t that funny. “Please don’t fight you two…” Hajime said in a weak voice.

Ui kept his calm, he looked straight ahead at the screaming Hairu. “Hairu… now that you’re a ghoul, the CCG is going to start hunting you. I want to protect you from them. Moreso than that, I want to fight for your sake. So that the two of us can keep on living together, don’t you think that’s a better reason to fight than an empty justice.”

Hairu said nothing.

From underneath the shadows of her own hair downcast over her face, a small voice rose up. “Don’t cling to me so desperately.”

Ui looked away, silent. His smile growing larger on his face, teeth showing as he bit into his own lip. His words came out in a harsh whisper, voice so high it was as sharp as a knife, “Arima Kishou is dead. He’s not going to praise you any more Hairu, he was never going to. At least the person I’m clinging to is still alive.”

The next sound Shio heard was the sound of the door slamming as Ui exited. Hajime did a double take, as if he could not believe the other was walking out. He scrambled forward desperately and tried to present Hairu with the platter.

Hairu looked at it, and then backhanded the plate onto the floor causing it to shatter. Hajime’s voice rose in panic. “No, Hairu you have to eat! don’t throw away your food please!”

Hairu shook her head.

Hajime grabbed onto her hand and held onto her in the only way a child could. “Is it because you hate Ui now? Do you hate me too? I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”

She shook her head. Hairu finally raised it high enough to brush the hair out of her face. In the months she had been living here, her hair had grown out much longer than she ever kept it as an investigator. Shio occasionally snuck a few books away from the small library they all shared. Inside there were pictured filled with fairy tales that normal children were probably told before bedtime. He thought Hairu looked like the sleeping princess in one of those stories.

The face she had been hiding this whole time while saying those cold things to Ui, was covered in tears. “I knew… I knew Arima was dead that’s why… I don’t want you to die too, Koori.” Tears streaming down, she held both of her handstogether over her face.

Shio wondered if she was praying.

If she did it would be pointless. No god would listen to children whose birth was a sin. Except for maybe a god of death.

 

♔

Shio avoided seeing Ui again, until Take told him and the rest of zero squad in a mission briefing that Ui would fight with them again next time.

After the briefing ended, Shio lingered for a little while longer than everyone else. He reached up and pinched Take’s sleeve with two fingers. Take, who had been looking around the back room of the cafe they had met in, as if he were expecting somebody to show up, finally looked down.

“Shio?”

“You’re not going to tell Ui-senpai about us, right?” Shio was straight to the point, as usual, It was hard being subtle around Take, as you could never tell what that plain face of his was thinking.

“What is there to tell him?” See, there he was being coy again. Shio let go of Take and put his hands on his hips. At this moment, he pouted worse than he ever pouted, even after he heard Furuta was using the clowns to frame Goat.

“About the garden! If we’re going to face V he’s going to learn about them, even Kaneki said so. We’re supposed to trust the person Arima put all of his faith in but… I still don’t wanna…” Shio could feel the emotion creeping into his voice, but even still Take’s face did not look at all moved by his pleas.

Take raised a hand. He looked like he was about to put it on Shio’s shoulder, but stopped at the last moment. It only hovered awkwardly there in the air. “Shio… mutual cooperation and mutual understanding, are different. I will continue to do what I thought was best.”

Shio had no idea whatsoever what that meant. He wondered if Take was going to pat him on the head like a normal child. He even wanted to ask for it. However, Take was not his family, and he was not even a child. He had completed half of his lifespan already. He simply turned away from that hand, wiping at his eye and trying not to think of Ui too hard.

He tried not to think of what he saw on the other side of that glass window, of Ui and Hairu trying to understand each other. Of the childish dream in his heart that the two of them might succeed at crossing that impossible gap that had been drawn between them since birth. That their hands might not touch after all.

Shio was naturally a dreamer. It was the easiest way to deal with the garden, to imagine himself someplace elsewhere. All three of them did it, Yusa stared at the human world, Rikai watched others, and Shio into a future where he was every bit as acclaimed as Arima. He even told Rikai once that if they killed even half of the upper members of goat they would shoot straight to special class. Apparently, that was ‘rude’ or whatever. Even those two other garden children, always kept silent and always kept their hoods up.

Shio tried to imagine himself standing there, being welcomed back as a hero to the CCG after destroying the evil Washuu. He kept that image in his mind as long as he could, but eventually, they had to start the mission.

♔

Shio looked up and saw all the various parties gathered, Rikai, Yusa, and then those two. He waved at them, and they waved back in unison. Twins were rare in the garden. That must have been why even in Zero Squad, they even kept to themselves. Shio thought it was unfortunate, with two of them both born at the same time at least one of them could have ended up being born complete rather than a failure

Take walked in and Shio smiled. Until Shio saw who was following behind him. That ghoul no face, the one Take had faced off against several times before. Shio wanted to see him again, but only so he could fight him in person. He put his hands on his hips. “Do we really have to fight side by side with that ghoul?”

Uta waved. The mask he wore over his face covered any expression he might have been making. Though, Shio was sure that his face would betray his mood as much as Take’s did, even if he could see it. “Hello, I’m that ghoul.”

Take looked at Uta, and sighed. “If I could make him go away, I would have done it already. He’s just the type that shows up wherever he pleases.”

Shio crossed his arms to convey that he was still not happy. Take looked slowly over to the side, and the back corner of the truck where Ui still sat in the shadows. “Are you willing to fight alongside somebody like Hajime?”

Hajime who sat next to Ui, inched a little closer. Ui looked down, and then raised his arm up to put a hand on Hajime’s shoulder. He seemed to do the gesture without even thinking, unlike Take who often thought too much and froze when he tried to reach out to others. Shio wondered why Arima trusted two men who were so different from one another. Then again, Arima only really trusted Take in the end.

“Hajime is different,” Shio said sticking his lip out.

“If it has a kagune, treat it like a ghoul.” Take said simply, and then sat down.

Uta sat down next to him. He scooted closer. Take did not react at all. Uta looked over his shoulder, “I can’t tell if you’re standing up for me, or insulting me further.”

Take shrugged. Rather than Uta, he trained his attention on Ui in the far corner. Ui was struggling to light a cigarette, but it was hard because the air was damp. His fingers slid off the lighter as he fiddled with it. “Koori,” Take said, his voice flat as ever.

Being called by his first name, however, seemed to bring Ui’s attention as quiet as Take was being. He must have only wanted Hairu to call him that, Shio thought as he watched. “What is it, Senpai?” Ui said, looking up and revealing his face underneath the messy bob of hair.

“I’m surprised Tsukiyama isn’t here.”

“He said he wanted to have a conversation with his father.” Ui sighed. “Otherwise he’d be as persistent as that other ghoul is to sticking to you.” Uta waved once more at the mention of ‘that ghoul’.

“What about you? Are you okay fighting side by side with a traitor?” As usua, Take was direct as possible.

Ui met that direct gaze head on. “I don’t care…” He gripped the hilt of Taruhi tighter. “I don’t care anymore…”

“That’s a good attitude to have,” Akira said as she walked in the back of the truck and sat down. Shio noticed she was late, maybe that was why she forgot her quinque. She sat down in her own corner. “The three of us are traitors, who are conspiring with ghouls. There’s no sense anymore, between any of us.”

She sounded confident as usual, but Shio noticed that when she sat down she hugged her knees close to take up as little space as possible.

Shio looked to the usually silent twins. He already knew what Yusa and Rikai’s answer must be, as they had gone to sit next to Take. “What about you two?”

One of them looked up in amazement that they were being talked to. “I don’t know, I’m happy to still be alive. I thought that time inCochlea, miss Aura was really going to kill us.”

The second responded in a much gloomier voice. “Even if we survived though… we have to fight alongside that nasty rabbit that killed some of our friends.”

Shio tilted his head. Oh, that was right. Zero squad took a few casualties when they were fighting against the pair of rabbits in Cochlea. Life was so short for them, they were so expendable that he had already forgotten. Was he being rude again. Rikai reached up and grabbed him by the sleeve, yanking him down to her level.

“You’re making a scene,” She informed him in a stern voice.

“I can’t help it, when you’re this cute all eyes are on you naturally.”

Rikai pulled him closer with another tug. Shio decided to just comply and sit next to her. When he did, she put a hand on top of his. She must have been ensuring he could not get away. “We should just fight like we normally do…like we always do.” Even as she said that though, Shio wondered why her hand shook over his.

On his other side, Yusa sighed wistfully. “I hope we can eat melon bread from that shop in Kanda again after this, it tasted better than anything the CCG ever served.”

It seemed conversation had died out between the many stray parties that were gathered together to cooperate in the back of this truck, and Take finally decided to take charge. “V is transporting something huge. There’s a near armored guard of carrier trucks on the highway right now. The CCG doesn’t even go this far when transporting ghouls to Cochlea. We’re en route to intercept them. The king will make them unable to continue on the road, when the back of this truck opens whatever you see in front of you, contain it first, ask questions later.”

Take’s words were firm, but Shio knew he only got like this because he wanted them to be strong enough to survive. Arima was the same, in many ways. He was always strict with Take too, but that strictness made him stronger.

Overhead, Kaneki stood on top of a bridge that was under construction. That was the plan at least. His kagune was large enough that he easily sliced through the wires holding the suspended construction materials together. Shio could hear the sound of steel beams falling out in front of the caravan.

Kaneki’s voice buzzed over the earpieces all of them were wearing. It sounded almost mechanical over them, “Take, I’ve done my part. I leave the rest to you.”

The king had been delegating more and more recently. It was a good thing, Shio had been told so at least. If he was a king he should not have to fight every battle on his own, he was supposed to lead. Shio still wanted to fight by his side though. The same way he still wanted to fight by Arima’s side.

The door in front of them swung open, as the car swerved and hit the breaks at the same time. Take picked up his quinque. Instinctively the rest of the squad followed him. All began to move out, except for Akira.

Take shot her a fleeting look. “I’m only here for intelligence gathering…” She said softly. Ui walked past her and did not even seem to notice his eyes, too focused on what was ahead. Take too, seemed to turn away from her if a little more reluctantly.

Steel pipes and bars had plunged into the leading cars, overturning them and lighting them on fire forming a barricade on the road. There was one central car which looked to be armored, whatever the package was it was most likely in there. The several black cars which had been following, some managed to stop in time and others were overturned. However, doors started to fly open from all of them, some were kicked forcibly, others slowly pried.

Of course Shio thought, those living dead would not die this easily. The black suits began to descend on them. “Shio, Rikai, you two move together. Yusa you’re with me. Twins, have each other’s backs.” Take ordered them all to act in pairs.

Shio rushed forward to the nearest black suited man. He drew his quinques out and jumped into the air. “Bet you can’t dodge this!” The black suited man easily sidestepped him, and reached for the katana at his side.

Rikai had his back though, she struck at his hand from behind bluntly with her own quinque, forcing him to fall back before he could draw his weapon. “Bet you he can…” Rikai said drily.

Ui and Hajime seemed to be fighting together as well. Ui immediately struck at the face of one of the men. Taruhi tore through flesh, its blade ripping apart where it made contact at the cheek. Still, the black suited investigator managed to twist his body just out of the way. He reached for the katana at his side, but before he could his arm separated from his body by way of Hajime’s kagune suddenly tearing through him.

Hajime looked up at Ui for approval. “You’re slow,” Ui said sternly. “Don’t let yourself get outpaced by the rest of zero squad.”

“Says a former zero squad member…” Hajime whined.

Uta seemed to just do whatever he wanted. He hung around Take, but when a pair of black suited investigators attacked him, he easily jumped into the air and dodged their blows while doing a splits with his legs. He continued after landing to dodge them, not even bothering to remove his hands from his pockets.

As usual though, the black suited investigators were cautious. When they saw the fight start to turn against them, a few withdrew and went to the armored truck. “We can’t let them get the Re: subject no matter what, sacrifice the rest and flee with the package alone if we have to.”

Just as they were talking though, the door slammed open knocking one of them to the side. A naked arm had punched through, surrounded by shattered glass.

Slowly a naked man stepped out.

The zero squad lowered their quinques for a moment in shock, waiting to see what played out next. The man roared, kagune coming out of his back and tearing apart the remaining black suited investigators that had moved to surround him.

Then it dissipated in a moment. The man lumbered forward more. His body already healing at a rapid rate from where the kagune had come out of his body. Take noticed something in that moment, the man’s eyes were closed. His back began to bubble again as he summoned more kagune.

“Zero squad, contain him!” Take ordered. At that moment, all of them present (except for Uta, naturally) moved to obey hs order. Ui and Take both crossed their quinque at his neck. Shio and Rikai at his sides. Yusa, Hajime from behind, and the twins at his feet.

He could not take another step. Take’s eye widened in recognition. “First Class Koutarou Amon.” The man they were all treating like a ghoul at this moment, was a ghoul investigator.

At his name, Amon’s eyes opened slowly. “Hmmm?” His nose twitched. “You all smell like ghoul.” His eyes narrowed on Shio. Immediately, Shio knew that he could tell. He worriedly looked back to Ui, hoping the other would realize.

“Father, Mado, the ghouls…” Amon muttered, as his muscles tensed against the blades that were holding him in place.

Take grit his teeth. It seemed too much, trying to make this decision on his own. He spoke to the microphone just under his ear. “Akira Mado, come out now there’s something you need to see.”

“I can’t…” Akira’s voice crackled over the radio. “I’m scared…”

Shio didn’t get it? What exactly was she scared of? Was it because Amon was naked right now? Perhaps this was one of those adult things he didn’t get.

Uta looked to Take underneath his faceless mask. “Can I try something?”

Take looked reluctant, but he could feel Amon starting to shake. Their stalemate wouldn’t last for long. Take nodded. Uta reached for the top of his mask, and peeled it off slowly. Underneath was not the face of the clown Shio spotted many times around the Re: Cafe, but rather Akira Mado herself.

“Koutarou, please. I know… you were always fighting for me. You’ve fought enough already, please, rest a little bit.” Uta-Akira said, imitating her voice perfectly as he reached out to touch Amon on the face.

The Amon that had been struggling against them the whole time and looked two second away from exploding, even the veins underneath the surface of his skin were showing, finally relaxed and closed his eyes at the fake Akira’s touch.

“Akira I… for so long I… was always thinking…”

Before he could finish his sentence though. Akira’s face was sliced in half. Even Take’s normally expressionless face looked shocked. “What are you doing, Uta?”

Uta’s face fell apart into two pieces, but his mouth still had time to fall agape. “Uh, What? I don’t know.” He fell backwards onto the ground, his feet still sticking up into the air. Tendrils whipped from his face and began to heal the damages.

It was too late though, Amon had already seen what happened. Shio watched the wire sharp tendril of kagune retract to its main body. What a strange shape, the end of the kagune seemed to look like a cross. It was the last thing he saw, before Amon’s bloodied cry pierced the night.

“AKIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”

His kagune came out all around him and pierced out in every direction. The next events played out like in slow motion. Shio saw kagune tear through the twins, both of them collapsing onto the ground. As he saw a red shard move towards his face, suddenly he was pushed over. Ah, Hajime was the one who pushed him, how rude. Amon immediately moved forward and bit and tore at the person standing in his way.

In the next moment he was lying on the ground, Hajime’s bleeding face next to his. Shio reached out, but there was nothing left of his face. It looked as misshapen and lumpy as Kaiko’s. “W-why.”

“It’s fine… it’ll heal. I don’t want the zero squad, to look bad in front of Ui…” Hajime muttered. Shio looked up. Ui had been the only one to dodge the initial blow. He threw his head to the side and curved his entire body, just like the way Arima used to dodge.

Take tried to do the same, but he had been hit on the head and fell on the ground. Ui stood in front of the two of them gripping Taruhi. “Shio, fall back. Yusa, Rikai, you too. Take Hajime with you, this isn’t a fight for kids anymore. I’ll handle it all alone, just like the time with owl.”

“Arima’s not going to come this time,” Shio said, caution in his voice. He looked to see where Rikai and Yusa were, and found Yusa pushed over with Rikai on top of him. Ah, sometimes Rikai’s pushiness came in handy then. The two quickly moved over to Shio’s side.

“I know, I don’t need him anymore.” Ui spun Taruhi to deflect as Amon punched forward. Shio quickly lifted up Hajime by the shoulder and took him behind the truck, Rikai and Yusa following behind him.

They all stared at the injured and faceless Hajime, not knowing what to do. The only thing that was left intact on his face were his pure white teeth.

“Is he still awake?” Shio wondered. The other two looked at each other and shrugged. Shio shook Hajime but still got no response. He had been talking just a moment ago. “Why isn’t he healing?”

Yusa and Rikai had no answer for that either. Shio tried to remember all of the things he had been taught about ghouls in the garden. He no longer knew which parts were lies, and which were the truth.

He reached and tore off his own coat, unbuttoning the black shirt he wore underneath. “Hajime, eat me, please. Eat me and wake up…”

“What if he can’t stop?” Rikai protested. “If he eats you, then he’ll really be like a ghoul.”

Yusa sighed. “Maybe that’s fine. Then he’ll be just like us…”

Were…

Were they…

Shio did not even get to finish the thought, as suddenly it seemed like Hajime had been listening to him. He dug his teeth into Shio’s shoulder. Shio hoped Hajime did not bite too hard into the muscle, it would make it hard to fight with two weapons.

Just then, Amon appeared in front of them. His entire body was covered in a pulsing kagune. Was that a kakuja? Even after seeing the owl all those years ago, Shio had never seen anything like it.

Amon held Ui in his hands as if he were a doll, and then tossed him aside. Taruhi, which Ui had been clinging to with the last of his strength, skittered on the ground. “Ghoul… must kill the ghouls…’ Amon’s kakuja muttered. Shio looked at Hajime on his shoulder. He must have been talking about Hajime.

Shio tried to move, but first something else darted from outside the truck. Mado Akira, she had faced down ghouls like this before. Shio felt a moment of hope.

Akira reached for the discarded Taruhi. She picked it up in her hands, only for her hands to start to shake. “I wonder… I wonder whose body this used to belong to…’ Akira muttered.

Shio had no idea what she was talking about. The garden kids never asked questions like that. If there was a weapon in front of you, pick it up and fight. It should have been that simple. Shio pushed Hajime down, and then stepped in front of him reaching for his quinque once more.

“I bet you think that I can’t dodge whatever you’re going to throw at me next.” He said cockily. Despite his confidence though, he remembered the twins, other members of their squad zero, torn apart by kagune in an instant. Was he going to end up like them soon?

That was fine probably, better than dying of old age like Arima. The tension of the scene, right before it could explode was cut off by a slow clap in the background. “What a good show you put on, Koutarou. I knew if I followed that woman, I’d eventually see something interesting.”

Shio looked behind him. Slowly walking up to them, was the cochlea escapee SS-ranked Priest, walking around in broad daylight free as a bird. Shio felt out of his depth in most situations, but at this moment he especially did not know what was going on.

He walked past Akira, and Akira dropped Taruhi to the floor as if she had given up. Amon seemed stalled by the shock for a moment, but as the one eye of his kakuja centered on Donato, he roared in recognition. “FAAAAAAAAAAATHER!”

He rushed forward with all of his strength, only to be slapped to the side by a mass of cross shaped kagune. Donato did not hesitate, he immediately stepped up on top of Amon’s kakuja, and reached his thin old fingers towards the head. “What a loud brute you’ve become. This is my fault, I never should have been such a free range father. How about some discipline then.”

Donato’s cross-like kagune separated into wires, and tore throw the kakuja at several parts, tearing it to shreds. “I’ll peel you out of this shameful display, don’t worry Koutarou.”

Akira still stood frozen. She was the first to speak up. “Are you helping us?”

“I have no interest in you at all. I just want to see the scales fall from my son’s eyes.” He reached and grabbed Amon by the hair, dragging him forward. Amon opened his eyes again, and he looked directly at the injured Hajime.

“Do you remember why you wore that cross, my dear Koutarou? It was so that you wouldn’t hurt any more poor orphaned children right?”

“That’s a ghoul…” Amon muttered, still not seeing what was in front of him.

“Nope. Look closely now, try to recognize him.”

“Hajime Hazuki…” Just like the time with Kurona. He remembered then too. All this time, he still worried about them. The poor lost children of the CCG, orphaned just like he was.

Donato let go of Amon finally and walked away. His hands were held confidently behind his back as he continued to speak. “Eating orphaned children now, I guess the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree. I was a bad influence on you after all.”

Amon’s eyes widened. One of them grew blood red, but both of them were bloodshot in his sudden frenzy. “No… Nonononononono. It’s not my fault. It’s the world’s….”

“Hmmm, so you’ve said. The world is twisted, and rotten, but who is it that is standing in the middle of that world? Who is it?” Donato said.

“Shutuuuuuuppp!!!!” Amon suddenly rushed forward and punched his arm straight through Donato’s chest. Donato looked down and smiled at the wound that had been dealt to him.

“How interesting…” he said, as he began to dissipate. He looked the same way ghoul’s kagune did when you cut them fatally, slowly evaporating away into a blood mist.

Even pried out of his kakuja, Amon continued to roar. He stalked around setting his sights on them once more. It seemed whatever whimsy that had caused this momentary lull was over. Suddenly though, Shio heard another voice calling out.

“If you’re just going to stand there and gawk uselessly Mado, at least get out of the way.” A hall of ukaku bullets stormed down. Akira dove out of the way at the last moment, using her back to protect both Hajime and Shio.

Amon looked barephasededy the bullets. However, it drew his attention away just to give Take enough of an opening to slice from behind. In one smooth stroke, one of Amon’s arms flew away from his body.

“I heard you lost an arm during the Anteiku raid. I’m sorry, Koutarou Amon, but I’m going to take both of them now.”

Take looked calm as ever, but his voice was shaking. Shio gasped. Was it possible that Take was experiencing an emotion? He had only seen him like this once before, during the fight against Aura and Tanakamaru.

Seidou Takizawa landed at the top of the truck. “Oi, sorry Mado.”

“You could have killed me, idiot!”

“I warned you to get out of the way. What did you want me to do, show up and sweep you up in my arms to rescue you?” Takizawa chuckled while chewing on one of his fingers. “Sorry, but that ain’t my style anymore. I thought you were at least capable of moving your ass out of the way on your own.”

As the reinforcements came, Shio did not pay attention to the fight any longer.

♔

 The whole time he watched Hajime’s slow breathing, as his face knit itself back together. Only when it was the aftermath, and Hajime had fallen asleep did Shio look up again.

Amon had fallen onto the ground, subdued entirely with two of his limbs off. Just as Take had promised. If only they had fought somewhere with RC suppressant, then maybe they could have subdued him more peacefully.

Takizawa took his cloak off and threw it over Amon’s body. Shio thought he might be dead for a second, but saw the shallow rising and falling of his chest. Ghouls must have been made of hardier stuff than humans.

“Jeez, put on a pair of pants will you. I can’t stand guys like that who can do nothing but show off their bodies.” Takizawa complained as he stood over AMon with his arms crossed.

Akira who had been quietly watching the whole time, finally stood up and went to look at him. The way she looked at Takizawa was the same way Ui looked at Hairu, like he wasn’t even really standing there in front of her. Like he doubted his ability to see her. Unlike Hairu though who was oblivious, Takizawa seemed to look back at her the same way.

He stood there staring and saying nothing, until she walked up and poked him on the abdomen. “Somebody who wears a shirt that only barely covers his nipples should not be complaining about exhibitionist behavior.”

Takizawa tried to smile in spite of the situation. “Be honest with me Mado, did you see Amon’s dick?”

Akira looked at him cross. “Shut up.”

“I need to know, be honest with me, is his dick bigger than mine?”

“How the hell would I know something like that!” She kicked Takizawa in the shin with the toe of her boot. It bounced off uselessly, considering he was still a ghoul and all.

Akira gripped at her sides. "How did you find us, anyway?"

"Kurona and I thought we were tailing Kanou, but it turned out to be V. I guess he's cooperating with them, now."

She drifted closer to him, inevitably, like the tides. She had gotten close enough though, that Takizawa noticed the tears in her eyes.

“Are you okay, Mado?”

“It’s hard… it’s so hard to stand up right now. Can I lean on you for awhile?”

Takizawa took a step back. “M-mado… I want to, but Furuta said I shouldn’t.”

Even in the midst of crying, Mado had the time to shoot him a dry look. “Are you listening to furuta now?”

“No, not really.”

“So what do you want to do?”

Seidou looked at the shaking Akira. His own hands started to shake too with held back emotion. He reached for her then, touching the sides of her face. His hardened pale, ghost-like skin looked so wrong against her soft and human cheeks, but she didn’t reject his touch.

Sediou leaned down to kiss her. A moment before they made contact though, Akira suddenly lurched away. She fell onto her knees and began to wretch.

“Well gee, I didn’t know it was that bad.” Seidou said, drily, taking the rejection rather well.

Akira shook her head. “No I just remembered… those quinque that I touched earlier… they were just like you… just like the person I…” She could barely hold back the nausea.

Shio looked away.

He picked up the healed Hajime and supported him by the shoulder, trying to find Take again. He saw Take helping up Ui from the ground.

The moment he was on his feet, Ui pushed Take away. “Why did we bring those kids here to fight?” Ui asked. He seemed to be talking about Hajime, but Shio saw directly in his line of sight, the torn apart bodies of the two other zero squad members.

“We- we wanted to be here!” Shio spoke up. Hajime looked up too, but it was hard for him to talk at the moment. “We want to fight side by side with the man Arima put his hope in. He’s our hope too.”

“What are you talking about?” Ui said again. So Take really had told him nothing.

Take looked at his own feet. “It’s fine Ui. They all fight, knowing they can die at any moment. The members of zero squad besides you and I, they’re not human. They’re half ghouls like Kaneki, born with half lives. They weren’t going to live long anyway.”

Ui blinked. “What.”

“Arima, the reason he sided with ghouls is because he was a half ghoul himself. He was on death’s door by the time Kaneki came to fight him. He was only going to live one fourth of a human life. There’s more to it but…”

Ui’s irises had almost completely shrunken. Shio could see his eyes looked almost completely white, like he was a man possessed. “That’s enough… I get it.” Ui’s hair fell in front of his face as his head sunk. “Why are they even fighting again, if it’s useless from the start?”

“I don’t mind Ui-senpai. As long as I get to go stylishly…” Shio said, but his small voice was not heard between the two men.

“I don’t know…” Take said. His voice completely hollow.

“If you don’t understand, then why the hell do you keep just repeating everything Arima says!” Ui said, his anger flaring up at Take. A moment later though, he shook his head again. “Nevermind, it’s all useless, isn’t it.”

Ui turned away and fled.

Take did not chase after him. He raised a hand for a moment, but as usual did not know what to do with it.

On the ground, the newly regenerated Uta smiled. “What an interesting show.” He commented.

Take suddenly drove his quinque right down into Uta’s face. He only missed by a hair, stabbing the ground next to him instead and breaking the tar of the road into chunks. “Oh, I’m sorry, my hand slipped.”

Shio looked at the running away Ui, as he disappeared on the horizon. Where was he going? No, Shio already knew. He knew what he had to do. He handed Hajime off to Take, and ran off too in the opposite direction. Towards the Re: Cafe. The place where they all seemed to gather these days.

♔

Ui’s breathing was course when he entered the room, because he had been running the whole way home. Perhaps this abandoned mansion had become a home to him. He slept here every night. He walked its halls anxiously in the morning worrying about Hairu.

Hairu, she looked up at him right then. “Ui, you look tired…” She said in a soft voice.

“I am…” Ui responded between heavy breaths, “I’m… so tired…”

Her voice was still soft, he could hear the concern in it. “What’s wrong?”

“That ghoul in the glasses told me… that a half ghoul has trouble with aging because of telomere shortening. The reason you’re not getting better no matter how much I feed you. It’s because you’re already old, isn’t it?”

Hairu’s eyes widened but she said nothing.

Ui chuckled low underneath his breath. He sounded like Furuta when he laughed like that. “Aha, it’s funny. I was always the one who worried about being too old for you. You’ve already completed most of your lifespan though…”

Hairu hugged her knees again. She still said nothing.

“Hairu, why didn’t you tell me.”

“I tried to tell you that this was pointless, you didn’t listen to me.”

Ui hand balled into a fist. “No, I mean before. We were partners. I thought I was doing the right thing, but all this time, you were a ghoul. You were just like the people I was hunting down.” Ui raised his head to reveal his face. Tears were streaming down from both eyes. He had gone so long without crying, now it completely overtook his face. “All that time, I thought ghouls were so disgusting… I must have thought you were disgusting too. Why didn’t you tell me? You must have felt so alone.”

He didn’t want her to be alone no matter what. That’s why, that was why she couldn’t die. He was her partner after all. It was his job.

“Arima told me not too,” Hairu responded in a whisper.

“Arima wasn’t your partner, I was.”

“The person I was fighting for, was Arima.”

“Why for Arima? Why not me?”

“You wouldn’t understand, Koori. You’ve only ever had justice and rules, you’ve never loved anyone.”

“SHUTUP! There was somebody that I loved!” Ui raised his voice. He finally took a step and began to close the distance between them. “It was useless, everything I’ve done so far was useless, but I won’t let you take that away from me. I really did love someone!"

Hairu opened her mouth, but Ui put a hand over it.

“I won’t let you-” He raised his hand.

Before he could do anything with it though, another red gloved hand suddenly appeared from nowhere and grabbed his arm. He wrenched Ui back, and held Ui’s own arm behind his back disentangling him from Hairu. The hold was a basic one taught to lower level staff CCG officers. Ui looked behind him to see a familiar smiling face

“Furuta?”

“Oh Ui, what a lovely face you were making back then. You looked exactly like me. Did you know, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.”

Ui broke free from Furuta, and looked at his own shaking hands. Furuta had warned him he would begin to resent her. What had he almost done? Whatever it was, he could never do it again. Ui ran away once more out of the door without looking back.

Furuta put his hands on his hips. “Boo, he could have at least stayed and had a good conversation. He’s a terrible friend you know.”

Hairu, recovering from the shock of the moment, looked at Furuta. If looks could kill, he would have been ended right there. “Nimura, what the hell are you doing here?” She said in a low voice.

Suddenly from his side, Shio popped up. He slammed his foot on the ground, drawing the attention of the other two. “I asked him to come here. I’m tired of all of us fighting. Even those black suited investigators, I didn't want to fight them either.”

Furuta and Hairu were both silenced for a moment and looked to their younger counterpart. Shio had finally decided, on that mysterious matter of family that he had been thinking over for a long time. It was okay. He was just a kid. Sometimes even cute and clever kids like himself were a little slow on the uptake.

“We were all born in the same place, right? Even if we weren't supposed to be, we were all born alive, and we're still alive so… so us garden kids should stick together.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next week, Hairu finally leaves that room on her own.


	12. I Saw the Reaper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hairu Ihei is a fluke, in both death and life.

Hairu reached towards her stomach.

“A… hole?”

That was obvious. Why did she say that out loud? Was she as brainless as Ui always said she was? Her fingers touched the precipice, but she could not let them stray any further. Ignore it.

She gripped her quinque instead. Hairu Ihei had never had her hand held with any kind of gentleness in her life, but as soon as she could walk, a quinque was strapped into her hand.

Her mind already raced at the possibilities as she let loose T-Human’s arcs. Once the sword and shield kagune ghoul (she had no idea of her real name) was dead she would need to defeat the other one. Then, continue up the stairs and reach the roof to meet Sasaki Haise. These were just butlers and general managers, the real achievement would be in taking down Tsukiyama himself.

Hairu remembered leaning against the wall and eavesdropping on Zero Squad meetings that consisted of just Arima and Haise. She wanted to know what was so special about that newcomer. Only to hear it: “You should not speak to ghouls.” Haise Sasaki was soft on ghouls, then? She would be killed immediately if she showed the same hesitation. What a spoiled brat. Tsukiyama was probably still alive up there.

She would climb to the top of this tower, and steal his credit. Arima would look at her, the well-behaved child who worked tirelessly for his praise, instead of the brat. She had been focusing too intensely though, screaming too hard to hear, as she looked up she saw it- another ghoul rushing in her direction.

“Body! Useless!”

What the hell was he even talking about. Nobody cared about the Tsukiyama family. Disappear and die like the rest of the ghouls. Ghouls were meant for nothing more than to die quietly. She knew this, because she was a half-ghoul, who was going to fade away like a wisp of flame soon.

Arima was already showing symptoms, and he was a few years older. He showed symptoms around her age. She was weaker than him, she knew. There were lots that did not even make it to her age, and ghouls did not claim them. Maybe her face would turn rotten like Kaiko’s. (Ui looks at me sometimes, it’s nice. He wouldn’t look at me if my face was sewed together corpse parts like Frankenstein).

Her end was coming soon, sooner than she thought. A pair of hands tore through her neck. No, these were claws. The monster she tried not to be her entire life, the monster she was born as, destiny was finally coming to claim her.

It was normal when facing the sudden and abrupt end of your life for all your previous experiences and important moments to flash before your eyes. For Hairu Ihei, there was only one moment she had lived her entire life.

While the two of them stood in a field of flowers together, Arima Kishou walked up and patted her on the head. He smiled at her. She experienced everything of that moment again, the gentle brush of the flowers against her ankles, the way he caressed her head. The light reflecting off his glasses obscured his eyes at first, but then when he tilted his head, the light became softer and she could see everything contained in his eyes.

He was looking at her. Finally, somebody was looking at her. Hairu’s face turned a light pink, just like the flowers underneath her feet.

She smiled.

Blood fell from her nose, and poured out from her mouth, dripping out onto her lips, but she still smiled.

“Ah…”

She experienced every sensation, all at once. Then nothing at all.

It’s dark.  
Where am I?  
Am I still at Lunatic Eclipse?  
What happened to me?  
I didn’t lose.  
Did I…  
Die?  
Why? Why? Why?  
Why me?  
Why did I have to die?  
How did I fail my mission?  
What did I do wrong?  
I wasn’t supposed to fail, ever…  
So, why was I born?  
If it was to kill ghouls, then I haven’t done enough...  
What was I fighting for until now?  
From now on, will I be gone? Am I going to disappear?  
Where am I going? Have I done enough to be forgiven?  
What was my life, even?  
This is the ghoul’s fault.  
I’ll definitely take revenge, I’ll get up and kill all of them.  
Move.  
Twitch even a single finger. Even if I’ve lost my arms and legs, I can still…

Was there a meaning to my death?  
For what reason did I die?  
I did everything you told me, I fought with everything I had.  
I want to know why I had to die?

No!  
I’m going to go crazy.  
Twitch a finger, but I can’t… I can’t feel any of them.  
Even if I bled out from that hole, I should still have my fingers.  
My limbs, my chest, my neck, I can’t breathe, or cry, or scream.  
I’m going crazy.  
No! No!  
No! No!  
Help me. I’m going crazy!  
Damnit! I’ll have my revenge.  
I’ll stand up again. I’ll begin the extermination again.  
No!  
No!  
This is the end?  
No.  
Arima.  
Listen to me, Arima.  
I never disliked fighting.  
But I didn’t want you to be hurt.  
And I especially didn’t want to lose you.  
Losing here, and never seeing you again… that is far more terrifying, no??  
So please…  
I don’t want to die.  
Help me. Help me. Help me. Help me. Help me.  
You helped me so much.  
All I need to do is say your name, and you’ll give me strength.  
Stay with me, please.  
My brother.

♔

Kimi Nishino jumped back at the iced body she had been inspecting, stolen from a CCG transport. She dropped the clipboard she carried. Two other men were with her in the room, one with his hair pulled back except for two strands which fell in front of his face, and the other his hair slicked back in a similar way and the only distinguishing feature on his plain face was a mole underneath his right eye.

Neither of them were particularly startled by the sound of her dropped clipboard, or even the sound her shoes had made when she jumped back, but both of them raised their head towards her in idle curiosity at the same time.

“What’s wrong Kimi, you look like you’ve seen a ghost?” Kanou’s clown was always the more talkative one. Was he a ghoul? Kimi didn’t know. He looked at her with discerning eyes sometimes. If he was a ghoul, she wanted to say, I’m doing this all for you.

Kimi shook her head slowly.

“The mouth just moved…” She raised her hand at the still clothed body of a pink haired woman, her head resting atop the ice. Both of her eyes were incredibly pale. Kimi thought it might have been just gas escaping as she tried to move the head, but she saw it distinctly once more- the mouth opening and closing again.

“Oh, my. What is my dear departed sister saying? Ar- i- ma? Oh, poor Ui-san, even in death you’re forgotten in favor of him.” Kanou’s clown moved forward, his red gloves moving to touch the head.

Kanou himself had been shaking as he observed it. Just now though one of his hands struck out and grabbed the clown by the wrist. Kimi thought for a moment that this might be the only human being on earth capable of stopping and taming this clown in such a fashion. “No, don’t touch her. Put her in suspension immediately!”

A moment later the head was in a jar, free floating in a rc cell laden nutrient solution. Kanou held the glass between his fingertips. Kimi could see his fingers still shaking slightly as he held it. He raised it in front of his face and began to address the head directly. “What a twisted fortune you had, or perhaps misfortune. I’ve heard of heads being detached and left in baskets after the guillotine still screaming out for periods of ten minutes, but to last longer than that. What a wonderful vitality ghouls have.”

Kimi reached forward and placed a finger on the glass. Unlike Kanou, she was not shaking in excitement. She wanted to feel a little bit more empathic than him, at least. “I’m sorry I couldn’t help you. Your brain hasn’t died… nevertheless, she must be on the brink of insanity right now.”

Kanou pulled the tank away from Kimi, and took a few steps forward to place it on the shelf. He fed the tubes that contained nutrient solutions into both her mouth and nose. “Even I’m a little scared to see what you’ll come back as when you open your eyes again. Have a good rest for now… young Furuta… what did they call her back at your CCG? Princess? Sleep well then, sleeping beauty, and dream pleasantly.”

♔

I have to get to the roof.  
She had not given up on that apparently.  
Tsukiyama is waiting on the roof.  
He’s the target of this operation.  
I have to reach the roof and the ghoul there.  
I have to exterminate ghouls.  
I have to get the credit.  
I need achievements.  
I’m allowed a certain amount of privilege. I can masquerade as a normal investigator.  
Only so long as I remain an asset to the CCG.  
So I must continue to fight ghouls.  
I must kill.  
To prove my birth wasn’t wrong.  
So I can live.  
For just a while longer.  
I’ll kill every ghoul there is.  
She looked in front of her. They had taken an emergency staircase to climb the Lunatic Eclipse building. When she looked up she saw the stairs wrap around each other in a geometric fashion. They seemed to extend forever.  
This must have been a tall building.  
She couldn’t hesitate, she needed to keep climbing until she reached the roof.  
Step after step, stair after stair, even when it was tiring, she continued to lift her leg and let her foot fall again.  
Where had the rest of her squad gone? Where was Ui with the backup that he promised? Kijima? That useless Furuta? She was the only one on the stairs, but at the moment she did not question it, she had to reach the top still.

“Stop.”

A voice spoke out suddenly, and only after that did Hairu realize she had been running up these stairs in complete quiet. The voice belonged to a boy with dark hair and glasses. He was a few steps above her. Behind him, a guitar case, it was strapped to his shoulder and the strap ran over his school uniform. Behind him further, a girl in a uniform from the same school, wearing a skirt. Her school uniform featured a striped tie, and despite how perfectly she wore her uniform her hair was parted in an uneven fashion and twin tails fell off the main mass of her hair on either side. She clung to his other shoulder, fingers gripping his uniform…

Hairu tried to ignore him and keep walking past him. He put a hand on her shoulder.

“Hairu stop. This is the stairway to heaven. You know don’t you?”

She didn’t even look at him. “You’re obnoxious, stay out of my way.” She finally spoke up. The boy did not let go of her though, his fingers tightened around her. Without a word, and with sudden strength he threw her back.

She began to fall down the staircase. Only then did she catch a parting glimpse of the boy’s face.

I saw the reaper.

He was beautiful.

Hairu Ihei thought, just before she heard the sound of a gate closing behind her.

♔

“I wonder what she’s seeing… I see her eyes move sometimes,” Kimi said, taking a moment to look again at the head free floating inside the class case.

Kanou behind her continued the conversation without looking up from the current file he was reading over. After reclaiming owl, he had been doing some interesting things to the once dismissed failure. “It could be rapid eye movement, or something like that. One theory for the many recurrent accounts of the afterlife in different civilizations is that dying humans, or humans that live through a near-death experience have their brains enter a permanent dream-like state.”

“What’s the point of dreaming when they’re already dead?” Kimi asked. Her sudden curiosity getting the better of her.

“Perhaps to maintain what little sanity they have left before death sets in.” Kanou chuckled. “ If I were a philosopher, I might say that the afterlife could be akin to a dream that lasts forever… however, I’m a scientist and there’s no way to test what death feels like yet.” He turned over another page. “Though I won’t deny I’m curious.”

 Kimi almost wanted to scoff. That man was always curious. His curiosity knew no limit or restraint. She wanted to say something else kind-hearted to the poor sleeping head they were cruelly keeping alive, but she also wanted to avoid another of that man’s lectures if it was not relevant to the information she needed.

Dreams? Afterlife? Reviving the dead? None of those were tangible at all, she needed hard numbers to change the minds of people, to persuade them. She reached a hand forward instead, and gently placed it on the glass as if she were caressing the face inside.

Suddenly the door flew open. Another assistant came in wearing a grave expression on his face. He was so emotional he slammed the door behind him. Which was saying something as what they saw here was several times worse than death, or even the violence in the outside world. She wondered what scared this assistant so. “Furuta Nimura has surrendered to Kaneki Ken.”

Oh, that was it.

Aogiri was gone, exterminated entirely. Their last refuge lied in the promises of the clown they cooperated with, that he would shelter them in the halls of the CCG again as soon as he took power.

Except, Furuta Nimura had just surrendered.

What did that mean for them exactly? For their illegal operations that were not yet complete?

For the 100 children that were currently sleeping within their tanks.

Kimi reached up and touched her neck right about where her collar ended. She felt something slowly tightening around it. Before any more assistants could give in to panic though, Kanou shouted in a commanding voice. “Kimi Nishino, sterilize yourself and prepare for surgery. You’re going to be my number two, find five more people you trust and have them on hand as well. This operation might last several hours, your attention or awareness cannot dip even once.”

Kimi stood there frozen for a second. She had not thought Kanou was capable of talking in such a way. His voice was eternally calm, slightly distant, persuasive, he sounded a bit like her father at times, but now he was something else entirely. Both that clown and Kanou, they might have been truly capable of anything. “W-what are we going to operate on?”

“Kagune transplant.” He tapped a finger at the naked and headless body floating in the tank. “We’ll extract from Koutarou, maybe his excess of RC Cells will finally come in handy.”

Kimi still had not moved from where she was standing. “That’s impossible. You told me that was impossible. Are you just going to slap her head back onto her body like this is Bride of Frankenstein?”

“Statistically improbable. Normally I would not waste my time with such a fanciful surgery, outside my mass production models and my nucleus, but if we’re going to beg for V to give us shelter, we’ll need something to bargain with. It’s rude not to offer a gift to your hosts you know.” He tapped on the tank once more. “Our little princess is a garden child, just like them…”

♔

She had fallen somewhere. It was dark. Dark and wet. There was something crawling down her throat. Her chest rose and fell at it’s own will, rather than her own. Suddenly though, everything became bright. The thing down her throat was ripped away from her, and the water poured away.

She took a breath again, and immediately began to choke. Hairu Ihei coughed up blood. Not only that, as if the sensation of her entire body and the entire world of light returning to her was not enough, her stomach twisted at the exact same moment. The nutrient paste inside of it suddenly began to rush backwards up her throat. She sat sprawled across the ground, coughing and spitting up in a puddle of what had been her life support a few moments ago.

Kaneki Ken stood over her, witnessing what new life looked like, crying, screaming and naked.

“She’s not wearing any clothes…” Take Hirako commented flatly behind him. “If I ever tell Ui about this he’s going to kill me.”

“The same if I tell Touka-chan. Give me your jacket.” Kaneki Ken held out his hand, and Take immediately surrendered his white zero squad coat to it.

She was cold, so cold. Immediately though she was wrapped in something warm. Her hand reached for her neck and she felt it. The familiar shape of the zero squad coat. The coat she was always wearing, because it was given to her by the person she loved.

Hairu looked up quickly, remembering what she had been dreaming about a moment ago. Her eyes had yet to adjust to suddenly being able to see. Her brain was overwhelmed, like a dusty older computer that suddenly had every outlet at once plugged into it again. She couldn’t make out shapes, only colors. She saw white… white hair falling messily over the face of the person looking down at her. The one responsible for the gentle warmth that now covered her.

“Arima…” The words softly left her lips. Oh, the name she had been trying to whisper all this time, she was finally able to say it again. She was so happy. “Arima, Arima, Arima, Arima, Arima…” Being alive meant being able to say his name.

Sometime later, Kaneki Ken told her in private without even Take Hirako in the room that Arima Kishou had died, and that he had been the one to kill him.

♔

All of these scenarios revolved around Hairu Ihei, but she could hardly call herself a main character. At best she was tangential to all of them. She was neither a supporting character, nor a macguffin. She was somebody who was never meant to be born, she was nothing.

Somewhere along the way, she mistakenly began to desire for something. That was the reason for her current disappointment, and also the reason she had disappointed Ui. She saw him run out of the room suddenly but was too in shock to even reach out for him or try to stop him.

No, she didn’t stop him, because she couldn’t. She knew exactly why Ui had screamed at her, had try to hurt her, and it was her fault. He was thinking, if only Hairu had not been born, if only she had not come back from the dead. It would have been better off that way.

She knew and accepted that, so why did it sting? Hairu reached and held onto her own self, wrapping her arms around her chest. She sniffled, trying to swallow it down, and tears dripped from both of her eyes. Snot and tears both fell onto her lips, she was not some tragic princess at all in that moment. She looked like a mess. Hairu wiped her face with her sleeve, messily, it tasted bitter.

There to witness all of it was Furuta Nimura. Her vision was too blurred to make out the finer details of his plain face, all she could see was his sharp smile. “Didn’t you hear little Shio, Hairu. We garden kids should all depend on each other more? Or were you too busy pitying yourself to hear.”

If she had a quinque she could have it at Furuta’s neck in a second. One time while they were fighting the Rose ghouls together, she had let shrapnel almost hit him and would not have particularly cared if it had. At the moment though, all she could manage was a frown in his direction. “He’s not like us, Shio. We’re... We’re what’s left of Arima, and he wants to stomp all over Arima.”

Shio looked back to Furuta confused. Furuta was smiling. “I wouldn’t say stomp, how artless. I’d want to do a good tap dance on it.” Furuta tap danced in place for a moment, until he realized his audience was not going to give him any praise. He still took a bow anyway, how self-indulgent. He stopped when he heard Hairu growl, low and feral. “How ghoul like you’ve become-” Furuta said, smiling still while looking down at his feet.

“Yes, yes we get it. You think you're funny. You’ve been like that since you were a kid. At least I’m not in love with a ghoul though…”

“Yes, of all of us here that would be Ui-boy.”

Shio tried to perk up again. He was a perky young boy, after all. “Would you two stop bickering please? We’re supposed to be a family, at least genetically… blood is thicker than water you know, even if it’s ghoul blood, I guess…”

“That guy is never going to stop. He hasn’t grown up at all… what-” Hairu stopped in the middle of her sentence and looked dead on at Furuta locking her eyes on him. She wished looks could kill in that moment. “What did you just say?”

“You heard me. You also heard it come from Ui’s own lips just now. There was somebody he loved, right? He was screaming it at you.”

Ui told her that there was someone he loved. Furuta told her that this person was a ghoul. Hairu’s nails suddenly raked through the bedsheets she was sitting on top of, tearing them. “Who is this ghoul bitch, then?”

It was her fault, her fault Ui was suffering so bad. The fault of the person that Ui loved.

Furuta was silent for a moment. “Oh wow, you are genuinely that oblivious. For a second there I thought you were just pretending.” He put his fingers up in front of his lips. “You’ll probably never realize on your own then… I could wait for Ui to tell you but he’d throw himself off a cliff first.”

“Out with it!” Hairu demanded, her voice reaching a high pitch.

Furuta removed his finger from his lip and pointed directly at her. “It’s you. The person Koori Ui loves is you, or rather the ghoul Koori Ui loves is you.”

Hairu’s eyes fixed themselves on Furuta, but she did not say anything at all. When she did finally say something, it came under her breath with long pauses in between as if she were still processing. (Gosh, she was slow, and they said he failed the academy). “That’s right… I’m… a ghoul now…”

“You always were, so was I and so was Arima.” He reached down and grabbed at Shio’s cheeks, pinching them. “So was this cute little one as well.”

“I don’t mind being called cute but, it sounds bad coming from your mouth, big brother…”

“That’s a little unfair don’t you think?”

“I think it’s completely fair,” Touka said, walking into the room suddenly. “Oh, so that’s where you disappeared off to. If you’ve come to harass Ihei then I’ll make you regret it.”

“Oh, you know miss Touka?” Shio asked.

“I’m his babysitter,” Touka replied.

“She’s my wife,” Furuta said.

Touka glared at Furuta for a second. Then moved over and forced Furuta to let go of Shio’s cheeks, so she could pinch at his cheeks the same way he had been doing to Shio. “It’s not nice to tell lies you know.”

“What if they’re nice lies?”

“There’s no such thing.”

“At least they weren’t boring lies.”

“I think you’re missing the point of this discussion.”

“Ow! Ow! Ow! Owie!” Furuta whined, but Touka knew he was only playing up his reaction to get a response. Hairu knew too, even though she had completely withdrawn from this moment. He was the same even back in combat training, one scratch and he would act like he had lost a limb. “I’m be-wing bu-wwied by Tow-ka!”

“Never speak to me in that tone of voice ever again,” Touka commanded him in a cold voice as she let go of his cheeks. She made a show of wiping her hands off on her jacket, and then returned both hands to her pocket and walked ahead only looking back at Furuta with a tilt of her head and one eye. “Anyway, I’m going to go corpse collecting so stop being a nuisance here and come with me.”

“As long as I stay at the cafe, I don’t see why I have to come with you.”

“I don’t trust you when you're on your own.”

“You don’t trust me regardless, so why should I come with.”

Touka looked forward. She hesitated clearly, her next words were muttered quickly. “Because-I-want-you-to.”

“I see. That’s good enough for me. Goodbye Lil sis and Lil bro, it was a nice family bonding session, I hope it was enlightening.” Furuta smiled.

As he walked down the hall with Touka, Hairu could still hear parts of his conversation. “It seems like another day that we can thank the callousness of society.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, we wouldn’t have a free source of food if society cared enough about those people committing suicide. I mean all they have to do is install a suicide grate on the edge of that cliff, what a few thousand dollars? They don’t do it because secretly they think that society is better off without the kind of person that would walk up to a cliff and stare at the edge.”

“You’re reading too much into things again.”

“Oh, but this time you listened to me all the way through instead of ignoring me, so I’m happy. <3.”

Hairu stopped listening though, as she realized she didn’t care about Furuta or that woman who poured her coffee. What did she care about then? Arima, he was dead. Why was her heart racing so much? It’s because Furuta was playing games with her again, he was just doing all of this to mess with her. She felt her heart constrict, like a snake was wrapping itself around her. Furuta was gone though… what he said had been another of his lies, so why did she feel like this?

Perhaps… she was the snake. She remembered the pain in Ui’s eyes when she told him that she still loved Arima. Did she say that? She didn’t remember well. Ui was always around her, but this entire time she could not bear to look at him. She always avoided his eyes but now…

“Where’s Ui?” She asked, looking at Shio. She wanted to see him again.

“I know where he might be…” Shio said, pumping a fist in the air as if he had accomplished something. He sure was excitable. With that, he took Hairu’s hand and began to drag her off. Away from the room she had spent so long hiding in.

♔

“This short person isn’t Ui,” Hairu said, commenting on the obvious.

Chie Hori went about adjusting the lens of her camera, paying more attention to that then the pink haired girl who had suddenly appeared out of nowhere and banged on the door of the apartment building that her, Shuu, and Mirumo were now staying at. Apparently, Tsukiyama bought out the whole building under a pseudonym a long time ago to impress Kaneki. “I have a name that’s not short person you know…”

Hairu tapped her lip with her forefinger. “Oh, I recognize you. You were on the watch list for hacking the CCG’s server. You’re a short criminal then.”

“I think you’re missing the point Hairu…” Shio grabbed a lock of his hair and tugged at it subconsciously. “It’s not a bad thing to be short anyway…”

Chie finished with her camera and leveled the lens at Hairu. “It’s Chie Hori. I actually find the witty banter tiresome so I’ll cut to the point. You obviously came here because you wanted something. We’re both cooperating members of Goat so I’ll give it to you.” She zoomed the scope of the lens, pointing it directly at Hairu’s neck. “I’m not a nice or respectable person though, so I’ll only give it to you after you show me what your neck looks like.”

Hairu’s hand went instinctively to her neck. When she woke up, as soon as she was conscious, the first thing she did was feel for her neck. She was not given some miracle treatment though, rather she was just the object of some mad experiment. Her neck was sewn together carelessly, and even though her body’s new healing factor bridged the skin together, the rushed stitches still resulted in an ugly scar.

Kaneki simply told her to ignore it. The moment Ui came back though, he risked getting caught as a fugitive in order to buy her a ribbon to hide her neck with. She was reluctant, not because of the look of her scars, but rather she did not want to untie the ribbon Ui had given her so carelessly.

“I want to know where Tsukiyama is…”

Shio at Hairu’s side piped up again. “It’s because recently, both Ui and Tsukiyama are always together, 'kay!”

“S-so… look for me.” Hairu said as she pulled the ribbon off dramatically. A mark, like she had been wearing a necklace of thorns and scratched her skin raw with it, covered the entire way around her neck. Even Shio who was used to the sight of blood looked away from such a painful scar on his cousin.

Chie barely reacted though. The only motion in her entire body was her finger pressing down on the shutter. “I was hoping it would be rotting a little, but oh well. He’s over there.” Chie pointed with the lens of her camera.

Hairu did not seem to realize she was bamboozled, as she immediately ran down the hallway in which Chie was pointing. Only to run back a moment later. She puffed her cheeks out in frustration. "The door is locked.”

“He’s having an important conversation, and anyway. Why are you in such a rush to find this Ui fellow?”

“It- it’s complicated….” Hairu suddenly hesitated. The energy drained from her demeanor quickly. She had just learned a precious secret of Ui’s that caused him great pain, she did not really want to divulge it to a stranger so easily.

“Ui loves Hairu, but Hairu was oblivious to it all this time but she was just told about it now.” Shio said, only trying to help.

Hairu looked at him exasperated, but could only manage to deflate further. She puffed up her cheeks and blew them out again.

“I wonder if it’s a coincidence that you’re seeking out Tsukiyama right now, it seems like destiny.” Chie mused to herself as she started to fiddle with the back of her camera. Hairu did not understand much about photography, but she wondered if she fidgeted with the camera the same way that Hairu herself sometimes fidgeted with Quinques.

Perhaps Chie Hori was more used to carrying cameras rather than human hands, too. Hairu wasn’t sure how a person who was born a complete human being could get like that. Though if she remembered correctly, this person as a human being chose on their own to support ghouls. Perhaps something else was born missing in Hori.

She was not the type to be so self-reflective, though. She wondered why suddenly she felt that way… oh, it was because Furuta called her oblivious. Is obliviousness an Ihei trait? She wondered looking back again to Shio.

“What do you mean destiny? Oh, is it because Hairu helped take down the Tsukiyama conglomerate, like destined enemies.”

Chie did not even react to Shio’s words. It was like he did not exist. “Tsukiyama was the same way. There was somebody who cared about him a lot, but he didn’t notice because he was too busy chasing someone else. It was like a chain, if I hadn’t been involved personally I’m sure it would have been much more fun to watch the chain break apart.”

Involved personally? Hairu did not know what she meant by that. “It’s not like that, I wasn't ignoring Ui. I was just trying my hardest to earn the praise of somebody I loved.”

Chie made a wild guess. “This person, did they give out praise regularly?”

“Never,” Hairu answered in a quiet voice.

“That’s why you wanted it, didn’t you? It’s not because you actually thought he would praise you, but rather the idea of his praise was something to strive for.”

“N-no, it’s not that.” How did you explain to a human that the first time anybody touched you kindly, was when Arima Kishou reached out to pat you on the head. Hairu was sure that Chie Hori’s mother must have wanted her to be born.

“If he had praised you then, what would you have thought?”

Hairu paused. She opened her mouth to answer but no sound came out. It took her, a few more tries. “I’d… want… him to praise me more.”

“You wouldn’t be happy then?”

“I...I would.”

“You hesitated though. Perhaps what you’re seeking isn’t happiness, maybe you just want a reason to keep on living.”

“S.. So! What’s wrong with that? I was born, wasn’t I?” Huh? What had she just said. All this time she was telling herself that she was doing all of this to make up for the sin of her birth. Yet right now she had gotten so defensive. She did not want to think about herself, only Ui, Hairu thought as she put both of her hands over her mouth clasping it.

She should just not say anything else. That was the best course of action. She did not know how to move forward without messing up further.

Perhaps Chie Hori took pity on her, that had to be it, because suddenly she changed the subject. “Tsukiyama was the same way, without Kaneki it’s like he had lost his reason to keep living. He slowly withered away, in a way that wasn’t fun to watch.” There she went again with the things not being fun. Hairu wondered if that was the only metric by which she judged things.

If so, then why stick so close to Tsukiyama, even when he was not being fun? Chie Hori gave Hairu no answer. At right about that time the sound of a glass shattering rang through the apartment. Hori jumped off of where she had been sitting and landed on the floor. “That could be interesting…” Chie commented, rather than ‘I’m concerned’. “Hey, Pinky, if you want to meet with Tsukiyama so bad, let’s eavesdrop.”

♔

“Shuu, my boy, what is it?”

Mirumo placed down the phone. Ever since he moved into this apartment, which was much smaller than the mansion he was used to, the phone seemed to be ringing off the hook. Even after surrendering peacefully and burning the records of the ghouls he had employed, there were members of the erstwhile Tsukiyama group which had been scattered to the wind as a result of the CCG’s raid of their household.

Every day he received phone calls, and every day they seemed to get more desperate as the Washuu tried to reassert their grip on the city. It was the fault of the Tsukiyama’s pride that they lost their place in the world. They were the first brick that caused the rest of the tower to collapse.

Shuu however, when he spoke up, did not seem to notice the ringing of the phone. That was fine, he worked so hard so his boy could live a good life until it was his turn to be responsible. “Father I want to know, Karren was a blood cousin of ours, she was a sibling of distant blood. A rose by another name... Papa, why didn’t you adopt her?”

“Oh, so you’re calling her by that name now. When did you learn it?” Mirumo said, his expression not changing which indicated to Shuu he must have known for quite some time.

“Just as she was falling, Karren asked me to call her by her name.”

“Oh, that poor child…”

“If you think that way, then why, Papa… why did you let her call herself by a fake name? You could have adopted her into our family and…”

Mirumo abruptly cut him off. It was the first time his father had ever done so. “Shuu, perhaps this is daddy’s fault, but do you know what it’s like to be hunted by the CCG? Their rates are always 100% extermination. Even though both the father, the mother, and both brothers fled across several countries they still kept Kanae’s existence on record. That young Washuu simply would not let her existence go unpunished.”

Shuu’s eyes cowered for a moment in guilt. The reason that the CCG came down upon their household, it’s because of the days that he wandered about doing whatever he pleased. The days that someone like Karren never was able to live. “The Washuu… They were at fault, right? Is it because they had too many connections? We had connections too, father, we could have gotten her name changed.”

“Kanae was too close to us in blood. If I formally adopted a cousin in the registry around the same time as that entire branch was exterminated, it would cast suspicion upon us. All of the butlers in our household, they were orphaned just like she was. It was the only kindness I could give them.”

“Is there a limit to kindness? And what does it matter? We were exposed eventually anyway, so Karren spent all of that time serving us for nothing.” Tsukiyama wrapped his own arms around his stomach. He had just eaten recently. Fresh food too, though he never thought he’d be able to enjoy a meal like that with Kaneki’s approval. Yet it felt so empty regardless.

“It wasn’t for nothing. We were able to survive weren’t we, and Kanae gave her life protecting you.”

“We weren’t exposed because of Karren though. We were exposed because of me, I… if Karren was too dangerous for the Tsukiyama household to care for then, why did you hunt so much when I was sick? I was the reason they began to take notice of us.”

“Shuu…Papa is your father, and you are my son. You’re the hope for this house.”

“I’m the one who destroyed this house!” Tsukiyama said, slamming his hand on the table. It was the first time he could remember in a long time raising his voice to his father. He really did have a loving relationship, and knowing now that Mirumo simply did not care for Karren did not make him love his father any less, the same way he could not stop loving Kaneki. “You loved me more so you made more excuses for my behavior. I was just your favorite…”

Chie Hori turned around back to Hairu from the crack of the door she was watching Tsukiyama through. “I think the conversation is probably going something like that.”

“That was a lot of interesting narration you added…” Hairu said scratching at her forehead. Though she did not really get how ghouls could portray such complex emotions, perhaps they were good actors.

“Mmm…Shuu was loved too much. The nature of his upbringing, was probably the result of the overprotective love he received. A distorted, selfish, twisted kind of love. So strong and heavy, he becomes sunken deep into the dark waters. At this point.. The only kind of healthy love he’d receive would be distant…”

“You seem to know a lot about him, huh?” Hairu’s finger had traveled to her lip instead, and she pushed on it idly while she waited.

“It’s mildly entertaining to think about him.”

“So you like thinking about him…”

She did not comment any further, however, as suddenly the door flew open between then and Shuu Tsukiyama stormed out. For a ghoul, he looked emotionally confused, as he was holding his head. He shouted in surprise when he saw Hairu. “Ah! Oh, the sleeping princess. Chie, you should have informed me if we had guests.”

“Oh, I didn’t come to see you at all. I actually don’t care about you, I wanted to see if Ui was here.” Hairu said rather bluntly.

Despite the fact that he was clearly in a dour mood, Tsukiyama put on a charming smile as he reclined in an expensive looking chair. He crossed his legs and looked at her with his hand framing his forehead. “I see, I see, then it’d be my honor to serve a lady whose so direct in her desires. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen our mutual sour-faced friend in a while. He disappeared after leaving to talk to you, if I recall.”

“I know, that’s why I need to find him. I said some things I can’t take back.” Hairu said, her hands having moved to cover her mouth.

“Ah! What tragedy! Chie, ask me why I’m sad?” Tsukiyama said, leaning further back on his chair and placing his arm above his head.

“No.” Chie Hori said as she climbed up. She was short enough that she could hang off of the arm of his chair. Hairu watched her move closer to him with a careful eye.

“Father doesn’t understand me at all.” Tsukiyama kept speaking anyway.

“It’s quite common for children and parents not to understand one another.” Chie seemed without sympathy as usual, but then she picked up her camera in her hands and started to fidget with it again. “I… I understand though, about Karren. You’re not the only one who thinks things could have ended differently.”

“Chie, how do you always understand me so well.”

Hairu gasped right then. “Oh, I get it! It’s because she loves you.”

Chie Hori dropped her camera onto the ground. The expensive camera she had bought with her own money shattered into unmendable pieces that flew across the floor. Even though she had done such a sudden thing there was still no change in the expression on her face.

“The cliff overlooking the scavenging grounds.” Chie Hori said calmly. “He’s probably there. Touka took him there to get food for you once. Please leave.”

Hairu did not need to be told twice. She was already out the door leaving a stunned Shio behind. “S-should I go too?” He stuttered.

“I don’t really care…” Chie said.

“I’m sorry about your camera…" Shio whimpered as he bent down to pick up the pieces.

♔

“You shouldn’t have come, Hairu.” Ui said, he did not even look at her. He stood on the edge of the cliff. Hairu did not know this but he had been this close to killing himself once before only to have Hairu appear again suddenly that time as well.

“What do you mean? What were you going to do if I didn’t show up?” Hairu was exhausted fro the run and bent over her own knees. She forced this rotting body of hers to stand up so she could face Ui properly. “Koori, please. I don’t know so you have to explain these things to me.”

“Even an airhead like you probably knows what’s going to happen next.” Ui said, as he let one foot dangle off the edge of the cliff. “It’s not your fault, it’s mine. I’ve gone too far. I shouldn’t be doing the things that I’m doing right now, but I can’t stop myself either. This is…”

“This is stupid! You’re the airhead Koori, not me! How can you tell me again and again to live, if this is what you’ve been thinking of yourself all this time!” Hairu was shouting but she did not want to. She wanted to tell him nice things, soft things. She wanted to be strong like Touka was, or smart like Chie was. Instead, she found herself shouting like a child.

Even her affection for Arima, she had just been competing for his attention like she was twelve again. The thought of Ui dying though made her twist up inside with all kinds of unpleasant feelings. She was not just sad for him, she was angry. He was a human being, how could he destroy a human life like that. “I’m not worth dying for! Stupid! Bowlhead!”

Ui raised his head to look back at her. She saw his face covered in tears. “I didn’t want to die for you, Hairu. All I wanted was to keep on living with you by my side.”

“Then come back over here. I’ll keep living. I love you! I need you! I want you! Please, don’t die!”

Ui paused for a moment when she said those words. However, what she said afterwards made him realize. “You’re too good, Hairu. Saying all those precious words just for me, even if you don’t mean them, but I’m… I’m too much of a coward.”

Ui took a step forward. He fell off the cliff.

In her desperation, Hairu jumped after him.

“Hairu, you idiot!” Ui shouted the moment he opened his eyes and realized that she was falling with him.

She reached out though and wrapped her arms around him. “I can save you Ui, I have shining wings now, I just have to use them to save you.”

“No, Hairu. Ukaku kagune don’t work as wings, we’re just both going to die. I… I’m so foolish.” Ui said, right before he felt the oncoming collision hit him. He slammed right into it. Hairu, wrapped around him, felt the same blow.

For the both of them, it was dark.

Then Hairu cracked an eye open.

“Huh, we fell off of a cliff. How come we’re not dead.”

Ui too opened his eyes. He reached forward and saw what was holding them up in what looked to be the middle of the air. His fingers wrapped around the chain link structure of the bottom that was supporting him.

Somewhere further down in the forest, Furuta looked up hearing the noise. “Ah, Touka they installed a suicide grate.”

“Good, then maybe you can finally shut up about it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 13 means Death.


	13. He was Beautiful

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Suicidal ideation, also known as suicidal thoughts, is thinking about or an unusual preoccupation with suicide.

Koutarou Amon’s chest rose and fell steadily. On either side of him, his arms lay there as if perfectly untouched. The woman next to him Akira Mado, watched in slow horror as they grew back from tiny hands into the long and masculine ones that fit his large body.  
  
Kotarou Amon was a ghoul. The woman next to him struggled to swallow this fact. In her throat, a bitter lump, she might even choke on it first. The one observing from the doorway noted all of this. On instinct alone, as he thought and fretted in worry for both of them, he reached up to put a single red hand on his chin.

“How is he doing?” Kaneki Ken asked. On his face a few splashes of red remained from feeding. He noticed when he saw the way Akira averted her eyes from him. Casually, Kaneki wiped it away using the back of his red gloves. She must be realizing it now, he thought. That she, a human is utterly surrounded by ghouls.  
  
Akira shook her head. “He hasn’t woken up, or maybe he won’t…” She trailed off with that thought.

Before she could let the quiet consume her again, a red hand appeared on her shoulder. Kaneki tried to squeeze her there gently, but he could feel her already slipping out of his grip. Did she know, that underneath his hand was made of kagune. “I’m sorry, it’s my fault.”

“It’s not your fault…” Akira said softly.

“No, it really is my fault. I ordered Banjou to use the remaining RC Suppressant we had on him.” Before Akira could eye him with suspicion, Kaneki raised his hands in front of his face to declare his innocence. “He wasn’t acting like himself when he woke up. Nishiki theorizes it’s because he’s having an rc cell overdose. Anything he’s done so far wasn’t his fault so please, don’t look at him so pitifully Akira…”  
  
“It’s because he was a ghoul right?” Akira said, her gaze at Amon uninterrupted.  
  
Kaneki did not know what to say to that. Instead he raised a hand and played with his hair. Looking around the room for something else to comment on, he noticed a suspicious absence. “Is Seidou not here?”  
  
“As soon as I showed up, he looked in the other direction and ran. Typical man.”  
  
“I see. It’s strange, he threw such a fuss when him and Take were discussing about Amon before I showed up…” Kaneki decided to let the subject drop. There were times that Akira looked with an unspeakable sadness, and he did not even begin to know how to approach her. “He told me you vomitted during the fight. Are you sick? Is it the surgery?”  
  
“I’m sick.. Of ghouls, and kagune, and kakuhou, and quinque…”An undescribable sadness, perhaps that was too flowery a language to describe Akira right now, she looked pitiful as she continued to refuse Kaneki’s eye contact.

He leaned down in front of her to catch her eyes. “I’m still here, you know.” His soft reassurance was met with silence again. He tilted his head. “Do you want to try talking with Hinami again?”

Akira shook her head. “She doesn’t want to see me.”

Kaneki reached for her arm once more. “Akira, come with me. There’s still someone you can talk to. She won’t turn you away, she hasn’t had visitors in a long time.”  
  
Kaneki offered her a hand, and unsteady as she may be, Akira took it anyway. “Well it’s not like I have a choice, my king.”  
  
Akira who always had been higher ranked than him, who had mentored him in how to wield a quinque. “Is it strange to call me that?”  
  
“You’re different from the Haise that I knew. It’s not like they never happened but, those things are in the past aren’t they?”

Kaneki did not talk any further. Akira who always warned him not to cling to the past. Who looked at Amon with eyes that longed for a few small precious memories shared between them. Kaneki always found himself feeling such conflicting emotions from people, but it was better not to question them more or less.  
  
Instead they walked together in silence. Akira could have let go of his hand a long time ago, but she chose instead to cling onto it. Until they finally arrived at his apartment. Kaneki snatched his hand away to knock at the door.

“I thought you were living above :Re.”  
  
Kaneki shook his head. “I was at first, but there were other things I needed to take care of.”  
  
As the door swung open seemingly on it’s own, Akira got a glimpse of the thing which Kaneki mentioned. Curled up in a corner, upon piles and piles of old snacks, discarded paper, plush looking pillows, and other general trash, the dim light of a laptop screen illuminated the face of a woman surrounded by green curls.  
  
She looked up, and sleepily readjusted her glasses. “You should have told me you were bringing company. I would have poured tea.”  
  
Akira did not recognize this woman at all. She looked back to Kaneki, searching his face for an answer. Kaneki noticed the emptiness in her eyes. Did I look like this as Haise, he wondered. How many times did you watch me so confused and deliberately leave me that way. Kaneki had no wish to do so to Akira though.

“You wouldn’t have…” He said briskly, dismissing the woman in his apartment. “Akira, this is Takatsuki Sen. I know I lent you one of her novels once, did you really not read them? That’s mean you know, since you told me you did.”  
  
Akira paused for a moment. Her memories surrounding Rueshima were still foggy. It must have been the month in a coma, Kaneki thought idly. “Arima liked those books better…”  
  
“Don’t you remember her from the broadcast? Though her hair’s gotten long again since then, it looked better shorter.”  
  
“Hey!” The green haired ghoul looked offended.

That’s right, Takatsuki Sen was… “A ghoul.” Akira finally pronounced the words. “Why did you want to bring me to see some ghoul?”

“Of course she is, you’re in the middle of a ghoul rebellion you know Akira.” Kaneki walked away from her and towards Takatsuki. He leaned against the wall that was near her. His tall self was quite the contrast to Takatsuki’s tiny and curled up figure. “Oh, that’s right. I wasn’t allowed to report this to you, the higher ups told me to keep my mouth quiet. Well I’m sure you understand.”

Takatsuki Sen set her laptop aside and sniffed the air. There was something feral about the gesture, yet, the otherwise civilized and booksih woman did so without holding back. “She smells familiar.”  
“I’m not Haise anymore you’re right, but I remember everything you told me.” Kaneki said, bringing his gloved hands together. “You know sometimes you repeat yourself Akira, you tell stories about your parents quite a bit. This story you only told me once though, and there was such pain in your eyes when you said it that I never asked to hear it again. That once, your mother and father participated in a whack a mole operation in the 24th ward.”  
  
Akira was famous for her intuition but she still had not connected the dots, or perhaps it was that same intuition that made her so quiet, so hesitant right now. Kaneki would not have known which, it was nearly impossible to understand the thoughts of another.

“Perhaps I shouldn’t drag out introductions, I feel like I’m doing all of the talking.”  
Takatsuki Sen rested her chin in her hand. She smiled into that same hand. “That can’t be helped, when you’re such a self important person.”

“Don’t you mean important? Adding a self there just makes me sound arrogant.” Kaneki sighed and then waved casually to Takatsuki with his bare hand. “This is the one eyed owl, otherwise known as Takatsuki Sen. Takatsuki, I’d like to introduce you to Mado Akira. The daughter of Kasuka Mado, the woman you ate in the 24th ward.”  
  
Takatsuki giggled. The noise was thoroughly unpleasant, but she seemed to be enjoying herself. “Oh, I remember her. She was tasty.”

  
♔

  
Two individuals lay on the grate which was the only thing that had prevented them from dashing themselves on the forest underneath. One was a human, and the other only half human, but collectively let’s refer to them as idiots for now.

Furuta Nimura sat at the bottom of the cliff looking up. His gloved hand held over his face to keep the light of the moon from out of his eyes. Touka Kirishima next to him, nudged him by the sleeve of the suit he was wearing.

“Well, go up there and help them already.”  
  
“What kind of help? It seemed they were trying to commit a lovely double suicide, are you saying I should help them along?”

Suddenly Furuta received a sharp elbow to the rib. He knew that was going to happen, but decided to speak his mind anyway. After all, Touka did not understand like he did. Death was the only thing that could really cure those two. Whether they got together or not, whether they fucked or merely held hands, they would still only continue to cause each other pain.

If Touka was against it though, he supposed he could not continue trying to convince them to jump off entirely. He grabbed onto a part of the cliff face, and hoisted himself with a rock that was sticking out slightly. “Okay, I’ll try, but don’t look at me while I’m climbing up.”

“What do you-”  
  
“You’re already looking at my butt! I can tell, pervert!” Furuta, foothold by foothold slowly began to climb up. If he used kagune like a ghoul the trip would have been much quicker, but there was no way he could do that.

Anyway above him, the two idiots continued to act out their romantic comedy. He supposed it could be considered a comedy now that neither of them had fallen and diced their bodies to pieces in a tragic ending. Furuta watched them, because those two idiots at least seemed slightly more entertaining than a third idiot slowly waddling his way up the rock face.  
  
“I’m not an idiot!” Hairu declared. Before he could regain his bearing, Ui saw that Hairu Ihei had crawled on top of him.  
  
“You jumped off a cliff. That seems like idiotic behavior to me.” Ui responded coldly. He averted his eyes from Hairu, a poor attempt at trying to avoid getting worked up at their current predicament, or perhaps their current positioning.  
  
“You’re the one who jumped first! That makes you the idiot.” Hairu said, slamming her fist against the grate in frustration causing the whole thing to shake. She caught herself, and repositioned herself for a moment, until she was sitting on his waist. The easier to make eye contact, though she did not seem to notice Ui getting increasingly uncomfortable. The moment she could look him in the eyes, she asked. “Koori, do you really love me?”  
  
“No.” Ui said immediately.

“Wait, why not?”  
  
“Why would I ever fall in love with an idiot.”  
  
“Koori!” Hairu whined, and then uselessly beat a fist against his chest. Koori Ui did something strange right then, and laughed. Years of chain smoking, and the fact a woman was sitting on him right now however, rendered the laughter into a series of pathetic wheezes.  
  
As Ui was what you would politely refer to as a total mess of a human being, at the same time as he was laughing, tears started to stream down his face. Hairu immediately began to worry. “Did I break something? You sound like you punctured a lung.”

“Hehehe - no, I’m just… I’m happy that you’re still alive.”  
  
Even though the conversation that they had was completely idiotic, Hairu’s eyes widened as she looked down at Koori Ui. For the first time she heard those words “I’m happy that you’re still alive.” As if it was okay for her to keep on living.  
  
“Why are you saying that?” Hairu asked, leaning forward to watch every detail of his face so that if he did lie, she could detect it.

“Because I love you…” Koori said again, without any shame.  
  
“I don’t know…” Hairu hesitated suddenly.

“Oi, what kind of response is that after bullying me for an answer?” Ui’s annoyed voice rose up out of him again.  
  
“I don’t know what love is… You were right earlier, when I said it, I was just desperate to get you to come back. If I tell him I love him, maybe he’ll want to keep living. That’s all I was thinking, not whether it was true or not.” Hairu reached up and covered her own face. Underneath, her pink cheeks began to turn an even deeper shade of rose. “Y-you’re right, I’m an idiot who doesn’t know what love is.”  
  
At that moment for perhaps the first time in his life, Ui regretted his bitter tongue. “No, you’re wrong again…” He said softly.  
  
“I’m really that much of an idiot?” Hairu whined.

“No! You’re not an idiot! I was! I always called you brainless, and made you walk behind me. I was the one who had three years to tell you how I felt, but I did nothing. Only realizing how you felt about somebody when you can’t have them anymore, it’s possessive, and rotten. I’m spoiled. Nothing more than a spoiled brat.” Ui laughed again in a hollow way as he looked up at the night sky above him. The sky was endless in both directions, the entire cosmos was contained within it. Yet, Koori Ui saw nothing at all. “It’s funny, I joined the CCG because I dind’t want to be a spoiled brat, but after all this time… you can’t deny what you are.”  
  
A coward, a brat, if Koori Ui was attempting to make himself seem loveable in front of Hairu he was doing a terrible job.

“You didn’t lose me, I’m right here.” Hairu leaned forward and rested her head against his chest. As if she wanted to be sure Ui really was alive in front of her. “Even if I’m only going to live for a few months, or a few days more, is it really okay for me to stay here?”

“Here…?”  
  
“Right here…” She said nudging his chest again. It seemed Koori Ui did not get it. “I mean, by your side.”  
  
“Oh-of course. I don’t care if you loved me or Arima, I just… want my days to be filled with your smiles.”  
  
“You could care a little bit! Do you love me or not?” Hairu said, suddenly puffing her cheeks out to pout.  
  
“Uh- I love you, I do!” Koori did not really know what to make of the strange human in front of him. As long as he had known her, Hairu barely acted human. He guessed he understood why now.  
“Hehehe, Koori loves me.” Then, perhaps becase of the adrenaline rushing through her veins from nearly dying, Hairu began to lean in with intention, looking at Ui’s lips.

“Am I interrupting anything, you two?” Furuta Nimura said, popping up.  
  
The scream that Hairu unleashed caused all of the birds in the surrounding trees to fly up into the air.

♔

Kaneki Ken run his hands through his hair trying to smooth it. The way his hair white hair looked right now, frizzed and fluffed, he could easily be mistaken for a lost sheep. He supposed that was his pennance for trying to fore two strong willed women in a room together.  
  
Awhile ago he had already excused himself. A timid person like him would only naturally shrink in the background between two such strong personalities anyway. As he left he had not been wandering with any particular destination, but in his wandering he wound up at the same place as ever.

Re: Cafe. A home away from home, he supposed. That was a hard thing to say when Kaneki did not know the existence of an original home. A second Anteiku. Those were better words, Kaneki used them himself in describing this cafe. A long time ago, when he first heard the news of the 20th ward raid, Yomo told him that as long as all of the individual people escaped that Anteiku could always be rebuilt.  
  
Lately though, Kaneki wondered how true those words really were. He wanted to believe in them but… Kaneki sighed over a cup of coffee he had made himself blowing away the steam. When he arrived at the cafe it was empty. The small bell that announced his arrival echoed to no response. Not even a soft voice telling him welcome, or a much more forceful voice telling the first voice to greet the customers more properly. Repairs had already come and the furniture was replaced from the last skirmish, but besides resembling a cafe the inside looked more like a painting. An imitation, devoid of life.

Kaneki thought contemplatively on all of this as he sipped his coffee, sitting alone on the counter. Then suddenly, two individuals walked through the doors of the cafe and life was restored.

Touka….

….And Furuta.

“Ah, king watch out!”  
  
Furuta warned him quickly. Kaneki looked down to notice he had spilled the entirety of his coffee. Rather than admit this, instead he stared at the inside of his coffee cup.  
Kaneki noticed something strange about the air between those two. His nose twitched, but he decided not to comment on it. Before he could even try avoiding the topic though, Touka appeared a hair’s breadth from his face. Kaneki was so stunned, he leaned back fully and nearly fell off the counter.

“Ah!”  
  
“You smell like two women, now.”  
  
“I was talking with Akira earlier. She’s still waiting for Amon to come back, I’m worried she’ll end up like Hachiko.”

Touka however, did not cede even a centimeter. “Who was the other one?”  
  
“I don’t know…” Kaneki had been looking down the entire time, but for one moment his eyes leered up at her. “Why do you smell like Furuta?”  
  
Touka faced away from Furuta then. Kaneki was glad, because he would hate it if Furuta enjoyed the face Touka made right then when she was caught off guard. “You should mop up the coffee you spilled…” Touka muttered underneath her breath.

“My, my, are you two fighting over me? You should know, there’s plenty of me to go around. I love the both of you equally.” Furuta commented from the background. Kaneki was surprised it took him this long to sneak in some smart remark.  
  
“Nobody would bother fighting over trash like you…” Touka muttered underneath her breath.

“Waaaah! Just when I was starting to feel a little bit of self worth.” Furuta said, dramtically grabbing at his face with both hands.  
  
Kaneki jumped up off the counter. He should mop then, if that was what Touka wanted. Before he could walk away though, Touka called after him once more.

“Why were you here?”  
  
“I was waiting for you.”  
  
“Ah, sorry.” She said.

“It’s fine…” Kaneki said, continuing to walk forward without looking at her. He knew there was a clown in the background that would want to pry at every detail of this scene, but Kaneki himself did not think too much of it. It was worthless overanalyzing such a trifling exchange.  
  
Just when Kaneki thought he might have some peace of mind though, he opened his eyes to see Furuta alone had pulled up a chair and turned it around to sit on right in front of him. The clown rested his elbows on the chair’s back.  
  
Kaneki tilted his head.

“I wanted to talk things out with you peacefully. A conversation with the Washuu, right? That’s what you wanted.” Furuta said, his head falling further down and his hair falling over his face. Kaneki could only see the eye with the mole underneath it.  
  
“Did Touka put you up to this…?” Kaneki asked in a dry voice.

“Of course she did!” Furuta smiled. “She said it was a terrible idea, and that made me even more motivated to try it.”  
  
Kaneki made the same bored expression the last time he had an extended conversation with just the two of them alone. There was something about talking to Furuta, it did not seem like you were speaking to another human being, more like an empty corridor, the sound of the wind, or maybe a mirror. “You should try listening to others more, if you want to be a less incomplete human being.”  
Kaneki wondered if Furuta would say something pitiful like ‘ was born incomplete so there’s no helping that’ in response. Instead though, the clown merely cocked his head. “I’m always listening. That’s why I wanted to talk to you now.”  
  
Kaneki decided to bite, any conversation with Furuta would undoubtably leave a foul taste in his mouth but it would not be the worst thing he ever sunk his teeth into. “Are you finally going to tell me the full story about Kanou?”  
  
Furuta immediately held a red finger up, tapping his lips with it. “I already told you, that’s a story for another time.” He paused and raised a second finger. “I told you this too, I won’t answer such boring and general questions.”

“You could easily run away from this cafe any time? Why do you stay?” Kaneki said, it was easy to ask that question because he had been thinking of it for a long time.  
“I bet you’ve probably been thinking about that for a long time, my dear Kaneki.” Kaneki did not want to say that Furuta was right, so he kept silent. “You’ve contemplated my moves, my motivations, but you understand nothing except for maybe a bad feelings.”  
  
“It’s natural to feel that way while in your presence.” Kaneki’s tongue whipped quickly, but it was entirely defensive. He did not like the idea of Furuta understanding even a little bit of what went on in his head.  
  
“Aha! Good one. You should just do what you usually do, and think of yourself to find the answer…” Furuta said.

Even though Kaneki was convinced he was mocking him, Kaneki closed his eyes just a moment to do just that. “It’s because… this cafe… the atmosphere is so nice.”  
  
Furuta’s expression softened. Kaneki did not think Furuta was capable of making such a face. It must have been another one of his lies. However, the words he said next were equally soft. “I never thought a person of such unfortunate birth as myself, a place where I could live without feeling constant fear and judgement.” Furuta sighed, wistful in a way that looked beyond his years, but wait… Arima had said children like little Furuta would only live one quarter of a human life. “I would stay here forever if I could, but that’s impossible for someone like me isn’t it? I can’t even be pitied for how I was born, because of the things I’ve done since then.”  
  
Kaneki did not know what to say. There were many moments like this in his life, and he always hose to do the same thing. He said nothing at all, so he would say nothing wrong.

“It’s different for you though, this place was made for you. No matter where you wander off to, you’ll always have here to come back home.”

For… me?  
  
Kaneki’s eyes widened as those two, so very very distant words connected together in his mind.  
  
“Oh, you didn’t know did you? Touka is just copying the manager, the same reason he made his own cafe so long ago. How unoriginal, right, or maybe, how desperate. Hey, you can say something, do you let other people do the talking in most of your conversations?”  
  
“You shouldn’t talk about Touka like that…” Kaneki let his face fall.

The serious tone dropped from Furuta’s voice entirely. “Ah, what are you going to do? Choke me again? I only like when beautiful women do that you know.”

“No, it’s because you’re the one who…”  
  
“Ah, that! You don’t have to worry about it! I’m just the replacement. I’m sure she was thinking of you the entire time when her eyes were closed, maybe she’s just using me as a warm up so she’ll be really good with-”

“Enough!” Kaneki yelled. He had not wanted to break in front of Furuta, but he could only stare in an empty coffee cup for so long. “It’s none of my business, I know… I just, don’t trust you.”

“Hmm, why is that?” Furuta said tilting his head again.

“It’s because you’re a bastard.”  
  
“Haha! You’re probably right but, still it pisses me off. A ghoul like you whose loved everywhere he goes, even in the heart of the CCG couldn’t possibly understand me.”

  
♔

Furuta reached out to touch the sleeping Touka’s hair. He was so used to watching her one eye though, he did not notice his mistake.

Touka’s head shook before he could reach her, revealing her other eye. “Don’t look at me while I’m sleeping, pervert.”  
  
Furuta did not know what to say so he simply smiled. He was not sure how to not be a pervert in this situation, considering what the two of them had just done again. Touka rolled away from him. He tried not to look too disappointed.

She sat up on the edge of the bed, the blanket trailing off of her like it was some kind white dress a marble statue would wear. Furuta himself struggled to jump into a pair of his polka dotted boxers.

Touka looked at him again the entire time. She tilted her head in an odd way. “What’s with you and polka dots?”  
  
“Why are you looking at my underwear, pervert?” Furuta mocked Touka’s own tone.  
  
As far as humor went though, that was pretty basic. He was tired, Furuta knew he could come up with better material later if given the time. Instead of thinking of funny things to say though, he found himself looking at Touka, as she still sat on the edge of the bed. One knee was brought up to her chest, and her arm looped around it. “I wasn’t looking at you, I was just staring off somewhere while I was thinking.”

“What were you thinking about? Was it me?” Furuta said looking like a pleased cat as he turned around and rested his chin in between two hands.

“In a way…” Touka’s hand traveled to her stomach. Furuta’s eyes followed her, uneasy. “Do you think it’s possible, if I keep doing something like this, for a ghoul like me to have a child?”  
“...” A rare thing occurred, Furuta Nimura had nothing at all to say. His mind was completely empty, even his insides felt like they were scooped out and hollow. His red fingers gripped fell away from his face and gripped the edges of his corner of the bed. “What could you possibly do with something like that?” He finally said.

“You mean a child? I could raise them better, better than I got and definitely better than you got.”

At her casual mention of his childhood self, Furuta winced. He looked down to see that his gloves were starting to break, he was holding his fists so tightly. These gloves… he hadn’t even taken them off at a time like this. “No child of cursed Washuu blood could ever be happy.” He said finally, in a much quieter voice than he was expecting.  
  
Touka slammed her fist on the bed. “That’s what’s so despicable about you. Why do you always give up and act like there’s no way you could be better! Arima tried to-”

“Oh Kaneki told you that? The same Arima that killed your mother? You know, you could have had better too if Arima decided just once to stop himself…” Furuta looked at Touka’s one burning eye and felt the need to backpedal. “I don’t blame the guy personally though, it’s like I said we have cursed blood. I don’t think he could have ever stopped himself, that’s what makes it so pitiful.”  
  
“Blood… what does that even matter?”  
  
“It matters a lot if you’re a washuu, but even a ghoul should know that. What you’re born as matters. That’s why I can never be particularly happy that I was born.”  
  
“This would be different…”

“Let’s enertain your fantasy scenario for a moment and say that we actually did something like that, and both of us the messes that we are somehow magically were fixed and acted like perfect parents, do you really think that child could still be happy in a world like this?”

“If it had us…”

“That’s exactly it, I’ll die in a few years on my own, and you would die protecting it. Then it would grow up with anger and hatred in his heart just like Kuzen’s daughter-” Somehow that was the final straw. A pillow flew from across the room and into Furuta’s face. He wondered why the comparison to Eto seemed to irritate her skin so much, was she allergic? Either way, when he removed the pillow he saw she had already run out of the room.  
  
Oh well, was all Furuta thought as he lay down on the bed. There was no need to feel regret when he was just being honest.  
Honest? Is that what it was?  
  
He was showing Touka his honest self when he said such terrible things to her. Furuta’s shaking, gloved hand traveled up the side of his face.

He wondered why he always wore these.  
  
They were so impersonal.

He had never even held Touka’s hand once with his own skin. She must have felt he was cold. “I’m using someone again. Just like I did with you. If I hadn’t come and interfered with things for my own amusement, Touka would probably be with someone who would bend over backwards to give her that thing she wanted…” Furuta raised his hand up using it to cover the light that was shining from the ceiling. Even this dim light, got into his eyes and agitated him. “It’s because I.. I… I’m someone who can only take…”  
  
Why am I like this?  
  
With nobody around to hear him, Furuta Nimura screamed.  
  
“Shut up! Just shut your mouth! Bastard!”

  
♔

  
Kaneki once again found himself wandering with destination. He stared at the clock on his wrist. For a king he found himself with a surprisingly light schedule for today.  
It was different back then, right after he took the throne. Everyone seemed to want his attention, they all called him by different names, Kaneki, Ken, King, Nameless, Sasaki, Stupidface, and the day disappeared as he answered to all of them at once.  
  
Now he felt like they only appeared at his beck and call and disappeared in between. Perhaps that was what being a king was, there was somebody who told him if he wanted to stand on top of others he needed to trust them.  
  
It’s not that he did not trust them, he just did not want to lose them. It sounded wrong when he spoke it aloud, but in his head it sounded right. Either way he could not make sense of it. Rather than trying to turn it over in his head again Kaneki looked up to see where he was.  
  
Oh, a door. Kaneki hesitated his hand a few centimeters from the doorknob as he suddenly recalled this place. Tsukiyama, Chie, Banjou, Hinami, the mask gang, back in those days all of them freely walked in this place together.

It was another period of time that Kaneki found himself constantly being called out for by others, Tsukiyama, Banjou, Hinami, they all wanted him, to spar, to train, to comb their hair. He even told Banjou that he would carry the burden from now on.

He must have come here in his nostalgia. Tsukiyama was living at this place now though, Kaneki found himself thinking again, and thinking it was best not to disturb him. He recoiled his hand, when suddenly he heard a conversation on the other side of the door.

It was hard to make out, because Tsukiyama was being quieter than normal (as a person Kaneki thought he was alright now, but he was very shouty). When he heard his name though, he made out the rest of the words clearly. “I’m still in love with Kaneki Ken… I’m sorry.”  
  
Ah.  
Just like the time on the rooftop when Takatsuki Sen said them, those words shattered his eardrums and reverberated through him. Kaneki Ken always prepared himself to hear hate and rejection from others, so he had no idea what to do with the opposite.  
  
Tsukiyama, that time on the rooftop, and after that. When I disappeared from this world you began to feed ravenously as if there was some missing part of you. That was me, wasn’t it?  
  
For some reason though he never would have known beforehand, the pieces once they were all alligned together seemed to fit perfectly. People were like clockwork, their movements seemed simple on the outside but when you peeled off their skin the mechanisms driving those actions were so complicated, gear upon gear interlocking.

It wasn’t his fault he could not understand it. Nobody could. Even the ones he thought would understand, never did in the end. A fatal question rung in Kaneki’s mind right then. Which one does Tsukiyama love?  
  
A nervous black haired boy in an eyepatch. All this time he had been avoiding Tsukiyama’s eye contact, but the moment he mentioned Takatuski, the sheepish boy lit up. “Oh.. yes! The literary style is delicate but the ore has a strength, and I’m really fascinated by the vague style of her work."  
  
No, that wasn’t him.  
  
A white haired boy whose hair had grown so long it easily fell over bothof his eyes. He stood over Tsukiyama’s well pressed suit, he himself wearing torn clothing. More than his clothing, his insides had torn themselves up and knitted themselves together again. Tsukiyama was much more well put together than him, but even so he knelt before him. Kaneki took one step forward, the noise of it sounding like a creek a monster would make in a horror movie as he looked at Tsukiyama again from the corner of his eye.

“If Tsukiyama were our ally, it would certainly be reassuring. So please, lend me your help. However, if you are unnecessary, I”ll kill you, so please treat me well.”  
  
No, that wasn’t him.  
  
A nervous and endlessly hesitating existence, black and white. He did not want to look at the other in front of him at all. When he cried he imagined the other was not even there. Black and white, down to the clothing he was wearing. Ghoul, human, ghoul, human. This time he knew for sure he wanted to be treated as a human. Yet, he was confiding this to a ghoul. He folded is hands in front of his body, and looked at that rather than the ghoul whose name he was sure he had forgotten.

“I… want to satay human, even if I have a body like this… I don’t want to accept Ken Kaneki that they call a ghoul, an existence that the ghouls were afraid of.”  
Then much later, more confidently he stared at the tower. As if the earlier scene, the weakness had never happened.

“Just you wait… Tsukiyama…”  
  
No, that wasn’t him.  
  
A pitch black existence. He woke up grouchy on that day, and was immediately met with a screaming child. So of course, Ken Kaneki had no choice but to silence them. The kagune control that had been so difficult in the past to him came fluidly now, he drove a spike through their eyes just like had been done to him. Then when he looked over shoulder he saw a woman, cackling mad as she watched over him. The sound of crying had pissed him off before, now the sound of laughter was pissing him off too. Blood seeped down from his cracked forehead and covered everything but one ghoul eye.

“Why do I have to save trash like you?”  
  
No, that wasn’t him either.

Kaneki walked down the hallway, but he had a sense that he had been walking down this same hallway forever. The floor seemed to bob up and down as he walked. It was a rocking boat, sitting in between the shore and the water. Kaneki stood on top, gripping at his head.  
  
He was not any of these things, he was not lonely like eyepatch, terrifying like centipede, weak like haise, and cruel like reaper. At that moment though Kaneki realized something.

If he was constantly telling himself what he was not, then what exactly was he?

  
♔

 

“Hey? Wake up? Why are you sleeping anyway?”  
  
“There’s no good reason to be awake.” Furuta muttered.

“Sou-chan.”

“Furuta.”

There was only one voice speaking but he heard the other echo in his ears. He was dreaming, and his dream painted itself slightly over reality. When he opened his eyes he saw Rize shaking him awake.

He blinked.

Touka was the one there the next time he opened his eyes. Ah, you are bastard, he thought again.

Furuta after that point did the mature thing and stood his ground, and tried to talk about the confusion he was feeling in his heart. No, just kidding, he made an excuse about not feeling well and grabbed his stomach, along with the rest of his clothes and ran out of the room.  
  
He did not know when he had gotten dressed. When he reached back into his memory he saw red though, and as he looked at the shipping crates and containers that surrounded him he immediately put two and two together.

The reason his red gloved hand felt heavy right now was because he was dragging something behind him. He looked back over his shoulder to see a faceless corpse. Ah, that made sense. He had rushed out of the Re Cafe. Then stolen a corpse that was yet to be cut up, and then dressed himself, and then rushed to this place, the place they were keeping Rize.

Not necessarily in that order. Perhaps he got dressed in the dead body freezer. That sounded a little bit perverted on second thought, he hoped he did not do that.  
  
He knew where he had been and there was a clear destination in mind. Rize. He reached for the doors of the container she was kept in, but he lost patience when the heavy doors were tricky for his skinny arms to move.

He heard something tear from behind his back, oh it was the sound of the suit he was wearing tearing away as his kagune emerged from behind the fabric. Not his kagune, but Rize’s rather bluntly knocked the doors open.  
  
He saw Rize sprawled on the floor, the same as the previous two times he saw her. “Meat…” She muttered before sniffing the air. All of this time they had been giving her enough to survive but not enough to regain her strength.  
  
Furuta tossed the whole body in. He said nothing, just watched her inch her way towards it while still in her restraints and start to devour it. Perhaps he should have cut it up for her earlier, because she was tearing it apart like a hyena with carrion. Really, ghouls were so disgusting to watch but Furuta himself could not pry his eyes away.  
  
Furuta looked at the skeleton remains that was left as Rize was busy licking the bones trying to strip off whatever remaining meat. He wandered forward and picked up the skull. “Alas poor Yorick, or whatever the fuck your name was.” Furuta tossed it aside bored with it.

“Alright, I gave you a full meal now do something other than writhe around. Break out of your restraints.”  
  
Rize said nothing and continued to bite on the bones on the ground.

“What do you need? Should I kill someone for you? Should I let you feed off of me? Should I fetch Kanou and have him operate on your brain?”  
  
Rize said nothing.  
  
Furuta pounded his fist against the wall.

“Say something! Say something other than how hungry you are! You can at least do that, can’t you?”  
  
Rize said absolutely nothing.  
  
Furuta fell backwards feeling himself sink against the wall. He covered his face because he knew if he opened his eyes again, he would not see the reality in front of him but rather another dream painted over it.  
  
Rize much younger sitting at the edge of the garden. Shiran flowers blooming around them in the bushes. She crossed her legs as she peered over the side. Of all the children, Rize was the most quiet. He never heard her say laugh, and play and distract herself. All of the other children played together in the garden, but Furuta always felt alone.  
  
He wondered if she knew, just like he did. He approached her carefull from behind, holding onto the pleats of his white robe. “Rize…” he called out to her.

She casually looked back to him over shoulder. “What is it, Nimura?” She was calling him that name, that joke of a name.

“Were you also bred?” The word they were forbidden to use.  
  
After a pause, she said it without looking at him. “...Yes.”  
  
The look on her face was sad in a way that was incomprehensible to Furuta. When he heard about it, when he finally figured it out he just laughed. He wanted Rize to laugh to. “Do you want to play with me?” He asked.  
  
“I’m a ghoul you know.”

“Oh, really you’re a ghoul? I hadn’t noticed.”  
  
“You’re stupid then.”

“Haha, yep I am.”  
  
Furuta’s eyes widened and he felt himself starting to shake. He tore his hands off his face, breathing heavily as he looked down to Rize again. He scrambled to her on his knees, and did something he knew he was forbidden to do. He grabbed her by the shoulder and made her look in his direction.  
  
“Look at me, Rize! See what I see! We’ve… we’ve been together all this time, haven’t we? The world's just the two of us, isn't it?” Only then did Rize move to break out of her own bonds. Furuta saw a kagune form from behind her.  
  
“Don’t touch me! Don’t touch me with those hands that smell like him!” People’s eyes were like mirrors, that was why Furuta hated to make eye contact so much. When he looked into Rize’s eyes for a brief moment, he saw the reflection of Tsuneyoshi. A moment later Rize’s kagune smashed into him and threw him away.

He landed on his face, and then rolled around a little like a clown caught up in a slap stick sketch. No that was wrong, Rize should have killed him. He looked up and saw Rize, now freed from her bonds, but she went back once again to the skeleton she was trying to clean. It did not matter whether she was free or not.  
  
Furuta stood up once more and closed the doors on her. As he walked back home, he recalled something idly. He once told Kaneki that he was planning on becoming the chairman and then marrying Rize.  
  
Well, his plans had been bungled significantly since then but he did accomplish one thing. He was finally recognized as the head of the Washuu family. He was so sure his father would be proud. As he walked back, Furuta laughed bitterly. He touched his chin as he did so.

  
♔

  
“Oi, what are you doing wandering in in the middle of a meeting?” Kaneki said, as Furuta wandered back into the Re Cafe. Considering the torn up suit that he was wearing, Kaneki was sure absolutely nothing good had transpired.

“If you were having a meeting, you probably should have switched the open sign hanging on the front door to closed,” Furuta said, dodging his question.

Kaneki rolled his one apparent eye and then gestured at Furuta to sit down. He looked at those gathered, Furuta, Kurona, Seidou, Ayato and Hinami. He held up a red hand. “Do any of you know where Ui, Akira, and Take are?” He had only called the top executives of their organization, and he himself neglected to invite both Nishiki and Tsukiyama for his own reasons.

“I heard special class and first class fighting earlier, as for Akira I wouldn’t know…” Takizawa said, biting at his fingertips casually.

“Yeah, I wonder why you don’t know where Akira is. It’s not like you run the opposite direction with your tail between your legs every time she calls out to you..” Kurona said, crossing her arms next to him.  
The two of them were both wearing matching hoodies, Kaneki wondered idly if they shopped at the same store together. Ayato raised his hand, the only one here who spoke even semi-politely. “What about Uta? He’s pretty much the face of the clowns, especially since I don’t trust the mime over there.”  
  
Ayato, pointing at Furuta who had been watching most of what transpired so far completely silently. “A mime? That’s a new kind of insult, I haven’t heard that before…”  
Kaneki knew Furuta would only contribute if he felt like it. “Uta is probably with Take, if Take and Ui really are arguing. It seems like they’re having a long overdue conversation let’s leave them to it. This mission is better with a small group anyway. We’re going to attempt another lab raid.”  
  
“What for? We already have your smelly juice for that ghoul investigator!” Ayato interrupted, forgetting his earlier politeness.

“You’re right, it would be pointless to risk another mission like that just to save one more investigator’s life, but I think we can hit two birds with one stone. Since we know now that Kanou is cooperating with V, then we could probably kidnap him and steal RC suppressant at the same time.”  
  
So Kaneki explained in cold methodical detai, the way they would corner Kanou within his own lab and kidnap him. Their entry was through a lab technician that in the previous operation Seidou had spared. Seidou would intimidate her to gain her cooperation. Then, as before they would knock out the power and search for the supply of RC suppressants. As RC suppressants are required to conduct surgery on a ghoul, than Kanou should not be far away ever from that stock pile.  
  
Kaneki knew in his mind that no matter where he was, no matter what set back he faced, Kanou would continue to experiment on others.“Seidou, Kurona, you’ll come with me. If we find him, I want you to hold both of yourselves back from killing him right away.”  
  
Ayato was back to raising his hand. “What about me and Hina! You’re not leaving her behind again, aren’t you?”  
  
Kaneki walked forward, and this time he hushed his voice to a whisper as he put a hand on Ayato’s shoulder and leaned in. “Don’t you think it would be cruel, to make hinami go on a mission to save the man who just stood there as her mother was killed?”

Ayato’s eyes widened, but he shook his head like an angry dog hoping Hinami had not heard that. “Fine, whatever! What about me though?”

“I want you to look over Hinami for me while I’m gone.”

Ayato gnashed his teeth. “Don’t say that while giving me some sad sack look like you might never come back.”

Next to him Hinami finally leaned her head on his shoulder. “Ayato, it’s okay you don’t have to get into a fight with big brother for my sake.”  
  
“Well that’s…” Having Hinami on his shoulder instantly seemed to quiet him down.

Furuta idly kicked his legs as he sat on the cafe counter. “What about me, can I come?”  
  
“I don’t know, can you?”

“That’s a literature student for you!”  
  
“No, I meant are you capable? You haven’t eaten properly in awhile little Furuta.”  
  
Furuta put a hand on his cheek. “Oh, you don’t have to worry about little old me. Besides, if we’re going after Kanou don’t you think it would be better to have his closest collaborator on hand?”

Kaneki considered for a moment, and then through his teeth said, “Fine…” He told the rest of them to get changed as the mission was going to begin soon.

♔

  
The mission went well, until suddenly it didn’t.

The electricity that they had taken the care of to knock out, suddenly turned back on again. Kaneki turned his head and saw from all sides, black suits begin to pour out of open doorways.

Takizawa behind him saw the lab tech which they were relying on use that moment to wiggle herself out of his grip, and run off. “Damn you Chieko!” Takizawa cried out again.  
  
All four of the ghouls present, began to draw out their kagune. Until Kaneki called out to all of them in his king voice.

“That’s enough! If you three fight here, you’ll die. I’ll fight them on my own and meet up with you outside of the lab,” Kaneki said as he held his arm out like a barrier for the rest of the group.

“Yeah, about that…” Suddenly though, from behind him Kaneki felt something pierce through him. It was Rize, or rather Furuta’s kagune and it pierced straight through the place at the base of his spine where his Kakuhou was. Furuta, knowing that Kaneki had multiple Kakuhou’s, ran him through with three other tentacles as well. “I don’t think so.”

Kaneki blinked and saw kagune with malformed teeth on it, sticking him straight through the center and lifting him in the air. “Furuta… what is this? Are you…”

“Betraying you? Yes, but not in the way you think. A small wound like that should be no big deal for the one eyed king to recover from, however, in addition to that this should put you out of the fight.”

Furuta slammed a needle straight into his eye socket. Oh, he knew what this was. RC suppressant being injected directly into him. Kaneki’s other eye blinked. He saw his kagune around him begin to melt. "Where..."

"We came here to find some RC suppressant didn't we? I guess I did a better job of looking than you."

Only then did Furuta dissipate his own kagune, and catch Kaneki by the hair.

“The hell are you doing!”

“Should’ve known better than to trust any madman that would willingly associate with Kanou.”

  
Both Seidou and Kurona turned on him, but before they could strike Furuta silenced them both with a wave of his finger. “Kaneki was going to tell us to run off while he stayed behind to fight to the death, don’t you think that’s irresponsible of him?”

Kaneki struggled to look up with the single eye he could move. “... Why?”

Furuta leaned down to Kaneki’s level. “You already know, it’s because I’m a bastard. A thief. I’m someone who can only take. I’m going to take it all from you, your reason to live, and your reason to die.”

With that he tossed Kaneki’s body forward. Just after being caught in Seidou’s arms, Kaneki’s eyelid fell, and he himself fell into a deep unconsciousness.

The last thing he saw was Furuta’s back as he faced down the black suits, while Kurona and Seidou ran away.

Furuta, sacrificing himself to save everyone?

No, that could not be.

He must have had some selfish reason for doing it.

Wanting to die for everyone, how selfish, Kaneki thought as he drifted off into sleep.

♔

  
When the fighting stopped, Furuta realized there were about three of the black suited fighters on top of him. Each of them had stabbed a katana into one of his joints but none of them fatal places.  
Just as he expected, they were keeping him alive. He heard footsteps down the corridor, and raised his beaten and bloodied face to see a familiar face.

“Furuta, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes.” Kanou greeted him in a friendly enough manner. As usual he did not seem to notice the blood that had splashed across the marble white floor, or the several torn body parts that were lying on the ground he walked on.

  
“I wish I could say the same,” Furuta said back.

  
“You’ve been causing a lot of trouble for my research lately. I’ve almost run out of subjects. I’d scold you if I were that type of person.” He said with his arms behind his back, continuing to talk. “I won’t need to do that though, as I already know how you can make it up to me. If you’ve had a sudden change of heart and want to steal Rize away from harvesting to feel better, that’s fine then. I’ll even help you.”

  
Kanou just then stopped walking and leaned down to look Furuta in the eyes. Furuta hated meeting the eyes of others but as he was being held he had no choice but to look. “You can become Rize’s replacement. There, doesn’t that sound like a proper punishment?”

  
“Yes,” Furuta Nimura smiled, “How fun.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can probably guess what happens next.


	14. Watering Artificial Flowers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Like mortar in a mixer, three heads melted quickly. Miracles have been used up long ago, and lie cold in the concrete. Killed. I killed. Have I killed?

_According to Hesiod’s account, Prometheus made the first man from clay. The rest of the gods, sewing all of the other creatures of the earth together, gave them claws, tails, talons, and scales, but left nothing for mankind. In his heart, Prometheus felt pity for man in their weak and naked state. In a rash decision, he rushed down the mountainside of the gods, clutching fire to his chest. When he had reached the bottom, only embers were left in his hands. He gathered them in a circle, and breathed onto the last spark to coax the flames out once more. When the humans saw it, they were captivated. The moment he lit the fire though, Prometheus gave himself away. Zeus came from the heavens and dragged him away. He was chained to the cliff and the furies were sent to devour his liver every single night…. Yadda, yadda, yadda._  
  
Furuta grew tired of this metaphor already.  
  
Wasn’t it a little self indulgent? Who was Prometheus in this story, Kanou? Doctor Frankenstein was called the modern Prometheus, but Kanou was nothing like that man. Furuta once made the comparison as a joke only to see him scoff. Besides, when Prometheus saw everything that humanity lacked, he felt pity in his heart. Furuta who knew Kanou knew that his chest was entirely devoid and in its many twisting caverns, did not even carry an echo of such an emotion, if he felt anything for humans it was… oh whatever.

Then was he himself Prometheus? That was even more self indulgent. Furuta knew himself he had rebelled against the Washuu for neither pity nor knowledge. He did not throw away his plans out of a change of heart. If anything Prometheus to him read as somebody who knew already his time was passing. The titans had lost the war, and their age was already coming to an end. No, it came to an end the moment the next generation was born. Even immortal, powerful life was totally replaceable. Prometheus was smart enough to know that there was no way he could escape judgement for his actions, but he committed them anyway. Not because he thought he could avoid punishment but, because he knew he would be punished. The image of Prometheus chained to the rock, bleeding, tearing, ripping, then mending, again and again, endlessly.

Prometheus saw two roads in front of him, to disappear silently and be forgotten, or to be tortured, to be violated so thoroughly that his screams would echo throughout the heavens eternally. When they heard it, the mortals would look upon him fondly for what he had done, and cry over his suffering, while the immortals would hate him for his betrayal, they’d revel in his pain and want to throw salt in his wounds.  
  
All of that, to be spat upon, to be weeped over, to have hot irons driven into his open flesh, to have his feet anointed with hair, to have hooked whips tear into him and rake across him pulling pieces of flesh wit each lashing, to be adored by the leprous and the lame, all of them climbing over one another’s festering and rotten bodies to reach him, to have his lifeless body mocked, to have his lifeless body held, every sin on earth was worth enduring if it meant avoiding the null, the nothing.

Then it was logical. Anyone in his circumstances would agree. The next step after enduring was to paint yourself in that same sin. To reach deep into it, until you became stained with every color. After that point it was only natural, you could do anything. You could even steal from the gods themselves.  
  
It was better, it was preferable to doing nothing anyway.  
  
As he was stripped and affixed so carefully to this machine, he had a thought. If he were to lose his mind immediately, if he were reduced to Rize’s state that would not make the suffering worth it. Those who were tortured begged to either go insane or die, as both were considered a preferable escape to what they were currently undergoing.

Furuta Nimura was perhaps the man who understood this mindset more than anyone else. He imagined Prometheus happy.  
  
The story he was telling himself was already getting tiresome though. Furuta’s eyes rolled back into place. He felt flood waters rising, it felt like a cold skinned woman wrapping herself slowly around his body. First his legs, then his waist, even the place between both too, up his spine, and then slowly, she ran both of her arms around his so he could not move them. Finally, she got to the good part, just as she slid both hands into place around his neck though she suddenly stopped.

Furuta blinked and looked down. Kanou filled the tank for his extraction, but stopped before it was completely full. The sterilizing waters did not reach above his neck, and no tube had been inserted in his throat to make sure he was breathing.  
  
“Did you want to hear my screams? That’s so unlike you…” Furuta commented, filling up what little space he had remaining already with useless noise and hot air.

“I was just curious, as both a scientist and a man.”

“About what, why I did it?”

“No. Whether you’ll laugh, or cry.”

“Ah, that’s a good question, old friend.” The word, that word, it left his lips rather easily. He had said it without even thinking, calling him that word, friend.  
  
Kanou did not seem to react to it though. In fact, he made no discernible change in his expression at all, simply reading the contents of the files Kimi, the stray cat who had wandered in here of her own accord handed to him a moment ago. The attractive young woman did not even look at him directly, and he could barely read her face covered in that sterile medical mask. Her eyes however, danced about the room to avoid making contact with anything. Furuta hoped she would continue like this, dancing about in ignorance, even until her much long awaited wedding day arrived and she was dancing alone on a field of grass.  
  
His eyes rolled slowly in his skull back to Kanou, but once again with no detectable change, Kanou gave the order. “It’s time to begin, no hard feelings, okay?”

Furuta knew this was true, because Kanou was an unpleasantly sincere person. In his case, it would be better for everyone if Kanou himself had continued to lie, but it was because he was so truthful that he was horrifying.  
  
Before Furuta could even say anything smart in reply, he felt a spear stabbing itself into his back. No, that was an inappropriate metaphor, perhaps instead his back was being stretched by a taffy machine? That was too colorful, he was being lashed on his back, over and over again. No, that was too rough, it did not give proper weight to the cold and mechanical steellike precision in which the machine ran through him.

His body was leaking already. He could feel it, wine and water were going to pour from his side rather than blood. Breathing suddenly became a slow effort that shook his whole body. He flipped in a panic, between two polar states. He could neither breathe at the moment, nor suffocate.

Then, the initial pain was over, and Furuta found his breathing slowing. He found what followed next to be much worse. His head felt terribly dull. He was drained of sensation slowly, as he caught in the reflection something red being drawn up from his back, and turned around again and again by the machine’s two prongs. They stretched it apart, and drew it back together, and with every manipulation of the dough like liquid material, Furuta felt a shiver run down his body.  
  
Furuta knew in older times they treated the mentally ill like this. Those who had lost all sensation, they drove spikes that could conduct electricity into their backs, and sent impulses into them to make them feel something. That was the only way he could think of describing this unfathomable feeling, his already numb, battered and bruised body was being forced to feel sensation again.

He could feel a straw being pushed into his neck. He could feel himself like a cow hanging off of a hook in a meat slaughtering plant, killed in one blow by the butcher’s knife and then slowly left for his meat to drain of blood. No, it was more like a spider had wrapped him in a cocoon, and then inserted both fangs inside of his neck, letting his insides turn to rotten mush from poison so they could be slurped out like a smoothie.  
  
Rather than wanting to die though, Furuta found himself gasping desperately for air. He did not want to drown, but rather, even if it meant kicking and screaming with all of his might only to tread water he still had to hold on even in the face of all of this.  
  
So he reached out to the first memory he could think of.

  
♔

  
His feet were tired from how much he had to sneak around the raiding CCG forces. Even with both a badge and a clown mask, navigating the tensions between both sides at this moment had been difficult. He could already feel condensation begin to collect underneath his custom crafted “PG” mask as his breathing grew heavier.  
  
Perhaps that was the reason why he acted so stingy suddenly when he appeared in front of and tossed the other mask he was holding in his hand, to an old friend. “Big sis, you put a lot of effort in this time. You also ignored all my calls.” Even though he was supposed to be acting the charming little sibling right now, he barely hid the annoyance in his voice.  
  
“My love nest…is being ruined” The sullen Nico sniffled in front of him. Even though Souta the Clown had gone through so much trouble to sneak here, that even his carefully greased down and parted hair was beginning to become undone, it seemed Nico did not notice his complaints at all. The two of them stood atop the hillside together watching the fun diversion that the Aogiri extermination turned out to be from afar as investigators began to file away with their heads held down.

They looked like cute little ants from so far away, marching themselves away in lines like that. Souta wished watching people from afar was really as much of a distraction as the other clowns claimed it to be. Then maybe he could be satisfied with just stomping on them, or pressing them underneath his fingers one at a time, or dropping candy on them, or holding a magnifying glass on top of them and watching them bake underneath the sun’s light.  
  
Of course that was not enough for him, and he was at least aware of it. Unlike Nico in front of him who foolishly continued to prattle on, pursing their red and full lips. “I thought Yamori could fill up the hole where my loneliness lies... but in reality, he just opened a hole in my stomach. Guess I was fed up with that."  
  
Souta the clown sighed. “You really are like a woman, always doing whatever is convenient for you.” That complaint went unnoticed as well. From the holes in his mask, he looked up at the sky. A cloud rolled out of the way and he could see the moon. For a moment he was amazed, because the two of them had really wasted so much time here prattling about uselessly. Really, Nico should have known better that they were both going to remain empty for a long time. "That's just like you, Big Sis."  
  
Souta leaned in suddenly, his red fake clown nose brushing against Nico’s large real one. Honestly, Nico was the only one of them that did not need to wear a mask. They looked naturally enough like a clown without one. "...By the way, in the end, did that "One Eyed King" really exist?"  
  
"There wasn't anyone like that there.” Nico’s head turned suddenly to face him.  
  
Almost comically so, Souta jumped backwards in shock. “Huh? Is that so?" He was the newest face of the clowns, he at least needed to act the part. It was Nico’s job as his big sister to take care of him, so when they leaned in close to tell a secret Souta played along.

The night sky which had been eerily silent for a night that contained so much loud gunfire and death, now was filled with whispers and the giggles between the two gossiping clowns, and in the background even further beyond that the sounds of the cicada chirping.

“It's the principle of the thing. A nameless king for others to rally around. It doesn’t actually matter who the king is.”

“Yes, but, what is it?”  
  
“I just told you.”

“Oh, so could somebody like me become king?”  
  
“Not when you’re such a poor listener!”  
  
“No fair, big sis!”  
  
Nico suddenly pulled away. They looked to an opposite cliff, where Souta with his newly acquired ghoul senses could just a little, smell that a few ghouls were gathering there when the wind blew back in their direction. The senses of a ghoul were really amazing. It was just what his instructors had always told him, they really were all monsters.

Souta used his deduction skills knowing Aogiri had already cleared out that those were most likely the Anteiku ghouls, that Uta the other clown present was with. “Once humans stand in a deep pool of despair, I wonder why they are able to become so beautiful?” Nico suddenly commented as he looked at the same opposing cliffside, interrupting Souta’s thoughts.  
  
“You mean one-eye-kun?” Souta asked, deciding to play along to Nico’s whims once again because it was easier that way. He watched as Nico’s thin brows arched, and they bought a single black fingernail to their lips. Black and red, considering how badly he beat those under his care that must have been Yamori’s favorite colors. Souta idly wondered if for Nico that was the same.

“Yeah.. he changed greatly. He'll probably become more of a man than Yamori was." Nico’s eyes which were usually unbearably dull, suddenly focused and sharpened at that moment. Souta knew to pay attention. “There are only two ways that a person can live. ‘To live beautifully’, or, ‘to live for the sake of someone beautiful’...”  
  
The young boy without thinking, suddenly spoke up to Nico. “Is that so? Then what about people who do neither.”  
  
Nico removed the nail they chewed on from their mouth, and smacked their lips together. “My, that is simple. They become mad and die.”

♔

  
“That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

He heard a childish voice ask him. His eyes fluttered open, far too gracefully for somebody who had been writhing in their own blood, sweat, and filthy water a moment ago. He breathed in a labored way, looking around. His head was still above water there was no option for drowning, but he saw the water level begin to sink all around him.

The next moments flashed by like a series of images, a silent film being played on a broken projector. He was doing the world’s worst rendition of Charlie Chaplin at the moment. All he could do was be dragged about uselessly by technicians like a rag doll. When he woke up, he was strapped onto a table. He felt he was laying in something moist and sticky, and realized it was his own dried blood seeping from his back. The wound was probably too fresh to heal, and he was hungry.

A moment later a tube was stuffed in his mouth. Oh, right. He should have expected this, he had watched it done to Rize so many times.

His liver was regrowing.

The voice from earlier spoke before. “Even if that’s what you want, I won’t let you.”

Furuta felt a fleeting wish. Perhaps, in this moment of insanity the childish voice his own mind conjured was the image of Rize. The one he remembered, the one he loved. She would look upon him and continue to condemn him.

As his eyes rolled uselessly to the side though, he saw a small boy huddled in the shadow of the extraction machine.  
  
Himself, it was always himself. No matter where he was, the one person he could not escape. Furuta tried to say something, but all he could do was gurgle blood at the back of his throat, as the force feeder was removed from him.  
  
He heard Kanou mention about starting again tomorrow, because of his worries that such a frail-bodied subject could not withstand multiple kakuhou extractions in a row.  
  
“I won’t let you forget…” the child declared finally, gaining the confidence to stand. Furuta’s eyes stared at the unfamiliar white ceiling, and rather unwillingly he remembered another scene.

♔

  
Furuta was thrown on the ground. He did not even see the ones who had grabbed him from behind, but he did not expect to either. One did not exactly go searching for the remains of a supposedly extinct ghoul group, and expect finding them to be a smooth ride.

He lifted himself up to just his knees. The suit that had been pressed and provided for him by the CCG when he became a rank one investigator was getting dirty. Good. He looked up to see closest to him a woman in a tight dress.

“My, my, if I knew I was going to be meeting with such a pretty woman I would have worn something nicer than just my work clothes.” Furuta glanced around to see two others, one with a stubbly chin and the other pitch black eyes and an undercut. “Oh, I guess you two are here, too.” He sounded much less interested now.  
  
The woman took a step forward, and rubbed her leg against Furuta’s face in order to get him to look up. He obeyed easily. “What’s with a human sniffing around this area anyway? Tell me, are you an M?”  
  
“I can be whatever you want me to be, ahaha,” Furuta laughed innocently, he wanted to rub his face against such a soft leg more but he felt that might get him killed. A pleasant death for sure but he knew he was not allowed to die in such ecstasy. So he leaned back and began instead to unbutton his coat. “I really thought if I soaked these clothes in ghoul blood, you’d mistake me for a ghoul. I guess I wasted all of that preparation for nothing.”  
  
The female, and most sharp eyed of the bunch looked to the other two. An unassuming looking human knowing such a trick, that made him interesting. Interesting enough not to kill. They would want to probe him for what else he knew, or so Furuta thought. He could speak of the Washuu, or V, but Furuta felt that might be old news for ghouls already living on the fringe.  
  
It was not the woman this time however who interrupted his train of thought, but the quiet looking one with the undercut. He had gone from being perched on a chair (sitting in it the wrong way, Furuta might add, crouching like that was hardly polite) to suddenly being a few inches from Furuta’s face. “Ahh, what are you looking at? I only want women to stare at me so intently.”

“Apparently you’ve been preparing for this meeting for a long time, so what were you looking for?” The one with pitch black eyes said.

“Some fun.” Furuta said, meeting those eyes easily with his own dull ones. “If you’re looking for a laugh, then the best place to find it is with a bunch of clowns. Oh but, there’s not much here is there? If I recall correctly from that paperwork I filed, a few years ago Houji, Arima and Take participated in a raid that cleared this ward out for good, oh, and then afterwards Houji did such a good job wiping you lot out he got a promotion and a free trip to China to completely exterminate another group of ghouls.”

He too, looked through those case files long in advance before coming here. The only thing young Nimura was good for was shoving papers it seemed, so while tailing in the shadow of a much louder and more sadistic investigator he began to look through papers to get exactly the information he needed.

Nobody expected anything of a failure like him, a failure in two regards to be born whole and to be raised like another Arima Kishou wannabe. They looked at him and saw absolutely nothing. As he smirked while keeping his head down though, that was how he knew he could get away with anything, because nobody was watching.

“Who exactly did you sleep with to get all of that information, you handsome young man?” The ghoul in the flowery shirt asked.

“Ohhh, I don’t want to answer that, it’s so indecent.”

“I’m curious too.” The woman in the dress asked, crossing her arms. With the emphasis the gesture gave to her chest area, Furuta could see she had a mole there. A mole! How interesting.

“Well I guess I can say, it’s because I’ve been watching you lot for a long time. After the extermination a few of you tried to grow up and move on. You started a bar named Helter Skelter and even though you served blood and turned away most human customers you still had to register the name of the building with the city, forging the papers of course.” Furuta poked in the forehead the one who was kneeling down so closely to him. “You too, stopped causing a ruckus in the fourth ward and started a mask shop instead, the HYSY artmask studio, registered with forged papers that came from her. Then you,” Furuta finally pointed dramatically to the one in the flowery shirt. “You remained a lowlife and refused to get a job.”

“Okay nevermind, I was interested at first but now I think our stalker here has to die.”

“You know stalking is a form of love too, I’m sure stalkers are completely convinced they’re in a relationship with their victims.” Furuta countered, as he could not resist running his mouth at the moment. Perhaps because the current character he was playing was a passive know it all, or perhaps because he was genuinely nervous he did not know really. “Anyway, I promise you I’ll die eventually but not quite yet, I’ve been preparing for this for a long while. Will you at least here me out until the end?”

The quiet one stood up straight then fully and put a hand on her shoulder. “Itori, let’s just hear what he wants. It might be funny.”

Furuta smiled. He finally finished unbuttoning his jacket, as his hands had been nervous and clumsy in the moment. When he finally drew it out from his inside pocket though, his movements were slow and precise as he slowly revealed what he was concealing in his red gloved hand.

He showed the three clowns in front of him, Uta, Itori, and Nico his badge. This was his formal introduction as Furuta Nimura, Rank 1 investigator.

“I’ve been asked to spy on the remnants of your group, so please will you welcome me in? I know I don’t look like much but, when I die it’s going to be a show that everyone wants to see.”

The clowns were speechless. Even among all powerful ghouls like the upper members of such a strange ghoul gang tended to be, they had not seen such audacity. It seemed none of the three knew how to react.

Until finally, Uta tossed his head back and laughed his ass off.

♔

“That’s not what I wanted to show you.” Furuta heard a voice that called him back to the present once more. The child that had been sitting in the corner, was now directly behind him. He felt his hair being grasped, and his eyes being pulled to look back.

“Why won’t you look at me?” The child asked again. Dull eyes met dull eyes. He wondered why his delusion already did not know the answer.

“I don’t wanna…” He murmured.

One of the lab assistants covered his mouth. He looked to the side to see the same girl in a medical mask with an uneven red haircut looking away from him. Apparently what he wanted did not matter in this moment, he was being moved again.

The lab did not even bother using a stretcher, so he was being dragged between the efforts of two or three assistants. Well, it did not matter much as long as he was like this he could not resist. Drip, drip, he felt blood ooze and fall from his back still. Even if he was forced to eat, he had not healed completely. Furuta did not expect Kanou to care though, as long as the Kakuhou regenerated.

He was affixed to the machine once more, and he felt the heavy metal being clasped around his arms hold him down like chains. He felt a jolt travel through him this time as the extractor stabbed into his lower back once again. Ah, that was good, his pain had not lessened at all since yesterday. If he had gotten used to this level of pain then that might be bad.

There was no water around his face, but for some reason, he felt suffocated. His throat hurt. He could not breathe. He heard someone screaming.

He realized, because his throat hurt so much, that he was the one who was screaming.  
Oh, he had given in already it seemed. He had hoped it would take a little longer than Rize for him to reach this state.

Furuta’s eyes rolled back. He could see sitting just a top the tube from which he was currently being farmed, his younger self idly kicked his legs. That Furuta was holding his hands over both of his ears.

“Stop making so much noise and listen to me, already…”

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!”

“Ugh, why are we so stubborn?”

♔

  
Once again to the past. A young boy and Uta stood in a mask shop together. Much earlier, the boy sat down and let himself be measured over and over, and even endured a compliment on how handsome his mole was.

Uta pulled out from his leather bag a perfectly clownish looking mask, red nose, full red lips and everything. He slid it across the table for Furuta to catch and examine. The young boy did just that, looking at the small details around the eyes.

“A heart?”

“Right where your cute little mole is.”

Furuta nodded, with a soft hmm. “A G? As in like CCG?”

“The G can be whatever you want it to be. Guidance, God, Gratitude.”

“Ah, thank you for making this,” Furuta said, putting on his more bashful personality as he bowed suddenly clutching the mask to his chest. Then in the next moment he crossed his legs and spun around in the chair becoming a lot more bold. He ran a hand through his hair and pulled his oily and black hair back changing the part so it’s in the opposite way. “I suppose with a small change like this none of those fools will see me. Well, even if they did they probably don’t remember my name or know what my face looks like anyway.”

He shrugged casually. The suit he was wearing right now was much different than usual. Pure white, like one of the doves, but the undershirt had a checkered black and white collar. He was sure it was a commentary on something, or someone, his father’s organization loved symbolism after all. It ran in the blood. He didn’t particularly care at the moment though. “Let’s go somewhere! The moment you get a new outfit you can’t help but show it off, right?”

“Hmm, I don’t know. I get new outfits a lot more than I go in public. Usually, when people see me too, they don’t say anything about my outfit, they just say aaaah, there’s Uta of the fourth ward.” Quiet Uta behind him, did not seem to get the point that Furuta was making.

“Is that your subtle way of rejecting me, oh well. I met a friend the other day, I guess I’ll just go to the gourmet club with him instead.”

Uta’s black eyes looked up slowly at Furuta at that moment. Once again, his nose idly sniffed the air. “You still smell like a human though. All of the ghouls there are picky eaters, they’ll be able to sniff you out at once.”

“Are you worried about little old me?” Furuta put a hand to his chest to feign that he was touched, before spinning around on his chair once more, the mask falling onto his lap. “I’m already half ghoul you know, all I’m missing is a kagune and I’ll be able to pass.”

“That might be a little hard to get…” Uta said.

Furuta smirked at that. He liked this feeling, of being the only one holding the script, knowing how the joke was going to end. “An old friend is going to loan me theirs…”  
  
“A friend, huh?” Uta commented neutrally, putting a finger to his lips. “Do you mean me?” Furuta saw it, all at once tendrils of kagune emerged from the back of Uta’s neck, and began to knit at his face. He pulled the hood of the outfit he wore down, and hair fell all the way to his back. Dark hair, feminine lashes, pointed brows, full lips pulled into an unhappy look, the face that he stared at no longer belonged to Uta, but rather Rize Kamishiro. “Did you mean me, Nimura?”

Furuta did not remember clearly what happened next. He saw a flash of red, and then images play by slowly one more as if they were proceeding on a broken projector. He reached forward and wrapped red hands around her face. Then immediately, his thumbs drew straight into her eyesockets. The first lesson that garden children were taught when they were being told how to kill ghouls. He pushed her off the table and stood over her, kneeling on her chest. His hands reached forward. The blood from her eyes had splashed onto his face, but he had not noticed yet. A moment ago he had been combing his hair, but now his face was a mess, his hair fallen over it, he came apart so easily it seemed. Furuta smiled. His hands wrapped around her neck. He did not even notice that those same hands were trembling.

“Rize I…” His breathing grew haggard, “When you’re not around I….” His smile grew wider, and with it his face twisted in all sorts of ugly directions. It was a trick he learned early on. Even when he felt nothing inside, he could express almost anything on his face. The face that he chose to show those eyes that looked like Rize Kamishiro’s eyes right now, looked like a greedy child begging for more food. He felt all sorts of emotions, tumbling around in his chest like a mixer.

Then, he felt nothing. “I… I… I hope that was a good show for you, Uta.”

Furuta let go, and sat back on the clown’s chest. Kagune came from Uta’s face again, repairing the damage like tiny little sewing needles working. He saw new eyes start to grow like they were bulbs being inflated. Ghouls were disgusting and terrifying, Furuta thought once more as he lazily wiped the blood off of his face with a white sleeve.

“It was… um… my bad…” Uta said rather awkwardly as he blinked with his fresh set of eyeballs. He seemed to be having trouble expressing himself. Furuta wondered just how much of his childhood Uta had spent alone. At least in the garden they were allowed to play with the other children sometimes. “I wanted to see if you’d be able to do it or not when you saw her face.”

Furuta stood up then, wiping off the knees of his pants. “Of course I’ll be able to do it.”

“She was your friend, right?” Uta asked once more. Apparently the show had not been enough to satisfy him after all, but oh well. If he were able to be content with life, Uta would not be constantly slipping from the edges to the middle of the action.

“She’s probably forgotten about me but yes, that’s why I have to do it.” Furuta said as he pulled and readjusted his red gloves. He picked up the mask which had fallen astray and slid it over his face. “You should probably call me Souta from now on. He’s the one who's going to be doing all this, while Furuta remains quietly within the bowels of the CCG. It’ll be good to keep them separate, yes, anyway, thank you for the mask. I’ll be looking forward to working with you as your junior.”

 _That’s why I have to do it?_  
_Why?_  
_Why… did I?_

♔

  
“I can show you why…” The petulant child sat on the edge of the operation table that Furuta was strapped to. He idly kicked his legs as he waited. Slowly, Furuta’s eyes peeled themselves open.

It was no longer the ceiling, everything around him was an unfamiliar grey. The child spoke up, “You’re going into shock. You lost consciousness earlier after screaming like a bitch. This is some pretty piss poor repentance you know, I bet even Kaneki lasted longer than this before he started losing his mind.”

Furuta said nothing in response. He knew the best way to deal with himself was to just let him rant.

“Hey, say something! You should just toughen up, you’re a man aren’t you?”

“No I’m only… six years old…”

“You’re a kid just like me, so why won’t you look at me?”

“What are you going to tell me? Some sad story about my mother that explains all of this? I.. I…”

♔

He knew it well, the form of a dark haired boy dressed in white robes. He ran in pitch black, holding Rize by the hand. He thought it would last longer than it did, but as soon as he saw the black suits coming he threw her hand away.

“Run, Rize, Run…”

His last words to her as he pushed her back in the opposite direction. He knew from the start that one person escaping was a miracle, but two was impossible. He was never going to go with her.

He watched as she climbed the final fence. He should have looked away but he could not, her form dressed in all white too became a pinprick of light at the end of the dark tunnel. Then slowly it faded away into the distance. He watched the whole time without moving, until he was left with nothing.

In his arrogance, he wanted to die right then. He wished it. So his final act could be one large swing on selflessness. His whole life, his birth, his painful raising, all devoted to the sole gesture of freeing Rize from the garden.

He stopped just short of his throat though. All his previous attempts, the cries of Rize had stopped him. A few times she stomped on him and called him an idiot. If he were to die right here, so lose, Rize might be upset.

The child Furuta began his long walk back to the garden. It was pointless though, because he couldn’t go back.

As an adult, he walked down the alleyway. It had taken him a long time to climb down from the new rooftop that was being constructed. The dust had already settled quite awhile ago by the time he got down there. The iron beams spread in every direction from their fall. When he finally got to Rize, he saw her gutted from every angle.

Furuta took a step closer, only to step on an arm. He looked down from beneath his mask and saw… just some guy. He looked like nothing more than your average college student, just another date that Rize was going to prey upon. Even so, he felt something bubble in the pit of his stomach.

He was a greedy and hungry child, he knew this. He had taken almost everything from her at this point and he was still not satisfied. Furuta stepped over the kid and reached out for one of the steel beams. He had been working gathering corpses for Kanou for a long time, but these might get in the way.

As he began to move one of them, the Rize he thought was down for the count for sure began to stir. Ice shot through Furuta’s veins, and he felt immediately like a prey animal rather than a predator. He stared at her body. Damn, even covered in blood and torn apart like this she was still beautiful, damn her.

No kagune came out to pierce through him, no, something much worse happened. From her bloody form, she wiggled like giblets, the intestines of the dead were reaching out to him. The intestines were knotted together like rope, squelch, squelch, squelch. She began to shake wildly.

“Nimura please… please kill me.”

It was funny, much easier than piercing through him with kagune, with those few words Rize managed to deny his entire existence.

Young Furuta Nimura, died.

All alone in the alleyway, that night a clown was laughing.

Finding her was easy enough, she had been causing enough noise that V agents were already prowling around the sixth ward. Shachi’s sacrifice, and moving to the 20th ward had done so little. She would never be safe there, especially not with Kuzen lurking in the background.

He did not expect her to recognize him though, a surprise, like being stabbed in the back. He almost stopped then. Perhaps if he had been born with a kagune of his own, he could have pushed the steel bars aside the moment he changed his mind.

If he had a kagune of his own, he could have been the one instead of Rize. No, but all of this, the stolen documents, long nights dragging bodies across the floor, breaking into houses and covering mouths with chloroform. Then tonight, his diaphragm shaking so much he felt like his ribs would break and shatter, as he sat crouched on that tall building waiting for her to come in this alleyway. The slow and methodical cutting through steel wire with a saw, as he tried to ignore the sound of her voice underneath.

All this time, all the intricate pathways he built all of the tunnels he dug like a maze with his scheming and at the center of it, all roads always led to Rize. It had to be Rize, she was at the center of all things.

The core of the world, the fire at it’s center. A fire he was going to steal away now, as he finished moving the last of the steel bars. He was gentle as he picked up the now sleeping Rize. He held her in a way, and caressed her face, in another way, and both ways made his intestines tie themselves into even more complex knots with nausea. As for the kid, Furuta adjusted his hold on Rize so he could hold her in one arm, and drag the bleeding kid by the leg. He could be dragged across the ground and eat gravel for all Furuta cared about him.

The fire he was stealing away into the night, he had no reason to steal, and his work was going to help no one. Kanou had a reason. He arrogantly saw himself as a giver of forbidden knowledge to the rest of the world. Not a modern Prometheus, he was too destructive, and deconstructive, perhaps a post-modern one.

Furuta though, it had to be Rize, and it had to be him. He did not even think something like “I’ll be gentler than those black suits who were going to find you eventually anyway…” No, that was not it.

If there was a reason it was…

He couldn’t go back.

The moment Rize left he knew, he could never go back to that place.

He would never again reach those days that him and Rize chased each other around in the garden so innocently, ignoring that the flowers underneath their feet were poisonous.

That they themselves, were poison.

He could not go back to those days, so he destroyed them.

_I can't take back what I've done, ever. That's what I want, for these hands of mine to be irreversibly turned red enough to match my gloves._

♔ 

  
Furuta’s eyes opened lazily this time. He did not even notice that he had been dragged back to the extraction machine. Only being stabbed in the back once more had been enough to wake him up.

Nico had told him a long time ago. His big sister warned the young boy. That those who were not beautiful, or had no beautiful people were destined to follow this path. Then of him, who did not love himself, nor could he love others, there was only one thing left for him to do.

He would go mad and die.

He looked around for the child and saw nothing. Apparently, that person had left him too. Waves of pain rocked through his body. He lost all control this time, and felt himself begin to thrash about.

Kanou wanted to see if he would laugh or cry in the end. Really, Kanou belonged among the clowns. If he were sane enough to speak clearly right now, Furuta would commend him. All he could think of though, was the cold steel in his back, rupturing, tearing.  
  
They were like two knitting needles, and Kanou would crochet his organs. No, that was a bad metaphor. He could not even come up with good metaphors right now, his mental state pushed to its absolute limit.

There was only one thing left to do. Kanou was a clown, so he already should have known, what clowns always did. He opened his mouth this time. He would not scream. However, just then by coincidence he caught the reflection image in the glass that surrounded him.

His hair was pure white, and one of his eyes had turned red. As the image was reversed though, it looked like it was the opposite than it normally was. Oh, Kaneki was looking at him, an even better reason.

Furuta breathed in as deeply as he could. He was going to get the last laugh now, he felt it. Just then though, words that he had not expected at all escaped his mouth. “Please…” His whole body began to shake, but not with laughter.

His dry face had become wet, not with blood but with tears that poured out from his face without stopping. No, no this wasn’t… He told himself with Rize gone he wouldn’t cry anymore… Stop…

“Please, please, please, please, please… Please don’t leave me alone.”

That’s not what he wanted to say, or scream rather. This screaming, and crying, pathetic face was not at all the face he was supposed to be wearing right now.

Even Kanou seemed surprised as he looked up from his clipboard.

Just then though, something even more unexpected happened. Three Ukkaku shards buried themselves in his shoulder.

A figure landed crouched, and then stood up, a rainbow of crystals emerging from their back taking the form of two jagged wings, that pulsed as if they were alive. They looked up to Furuta, before reappearing right next to him and shattering the glass open with a casual kick. Apparently, there was something they wanted him to hear.

“I won’t. So quit bitching already.”

Furuta looked up at the blue haired angel who had saved him.

Oh wait, it was just Ayato. Nevermind. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next week, Ayato finally gets a chapter. (Touka is there too).


	15. Shonen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's just Ayato this time.

The young boy seemed to have a bad habit of kicking in windows. His foot flung forward and the glass shattered easily spreading all around him. Water spilled out, then the stranger with the floppy hairdo started to gasp and rasp, the way his eyes looked dead to the boy, and the way he was desperately struggling for air he looked like a fish dragged out of water.

Then suddenly, the man enclosed in the iron machine calmed down all at once. He opened his eyes, and said in a rather dry voice. “Oh, it’s just Ayato.”

“What the hell do you mean it’s just Ayato!” Ayato said, giving an extra kick to the great machine in anger and causing the metal to bend from the impact of his foot alone. “Ah shit, sorry doc I think I broke it. Seems like the only thing I’m good for is breaking things.”

Wings that were every color spread out from Ayato’s back, the jacket he was wearing lifting up behind him to make room and whipping behind him. He straightened up from his normal slouching posture to shoot forward his kagune all at once, pinpointing several weak structures in the bindings holding Furuta by sight alone. Furuta broken free quite literally, fell forward haplessly.  
  
Ayato dashed to catch him, holding both of his arms out. Furuta’s body was skinnier, and more delicate than he expected. He also wasn’t wearing anything, so there was that too. Ayato managed to catch him bridal style, jumping down from the platform the machine was being held on and landing on the lab floor.

“If this was how I was going to be rescued, I’d rather be swept away in the arms of a beautiful lady…” Furuta moaned, his eyes were pensive, blurred, as if he wasn’t entirely there.  
  
Ayato scoffed. “Trashy trash human garbage beings like you don’t get to complain about how they’re saved. It’s like that human phrase about beggars and choosers.”

“Oh, I never heard of that one. How did you think it went?”  
  
“Quit with the small talk! Do you not realize what situation we’re in.”  
  
“Of course I realize what situation we’re in. That’s why I wanted to have a friendly conversation before the end. It was nice knowing you, Ayato-kun.”

Ayato dashed ahead, no longer wanting to put up with the noise of his hanger-on. The moment he had arrived, Kanou who could not defend himself fled. He had been briefed on Kanou’s patterns up until now.

Kanou would always flee when presented with a stronger opponent, flee and rely on back up to cover for him. Which meant the place Kanou was running too right now must have been some kind of emergency exit.

White hallways flashed by him, and Ayato hung only onto Kanou’s scent. He was a human so even with a headstart Ayato would catch up to him eventually. At these moments where he relied on scent alone and pushed his body to its absolute limit, he felt more like a predator then anything else.

Though, Ayato did not know exactly what that anything else would be. He was not a human. He was a monster that ate human flesh. He knew this much. He was also a young boy. He did not want to acknowledge this fact.

Regardless the boy broke through finally the endless hallways and came to a more open room. A large amount of capsules just like the one he broke Furuta out of were lined up right in a row. All of them marked “:RE”. Ayato could smell from the ceiling, a massive amount of RC suppressant being redirected through this place. He fought back against the nausea. Then he looked down and remembered he was still carrying Furuta. He fought back against more nausea, as he put the other down.

“Oh, handle me gently young handsome man. I’m fragile goods now.”  
  
“You’re lucky I don’t drop you.”

Ayato looked to the other, and saw there were no spare clothes lying around to put on him. He looked to his own jacket then, and reluctantly shrugged it off of his shoulders and draped it over Furuta who was on the ground still.

“Are you going to stand up,” Ayato asked, looking away to survey the rest of the area. This was the end of the hall, and Kanou’s scent did not lead elsewhere. He sniffed the air like an anxious dog.

“If I could, I would, I hate the feeling of being looked down on by a brat like you,” Furuta said, his voice sounding sick with pride. He pulled the coat further over himself to hide his body though. As he tried to move even a little his body was shaking. Ayato was going to assume that he would be about as reliable on his own as a cadaver from now on. Furuta himself seemed to realize this, as he huddled himself further under the coat. “Ah but thank you… no one’s ever… no one…”

That thought died as suddenly one of the capsule’s began to rise, Kanou’s face appearing in the reflection behind it. “It’s been awhile since Aogiri, Ayato, are you keeping well? How are Tatara, Eto and Noro? All dead now I presume. If any of them lived besides you I hope that Naki did, he was quite charming besides his lack of an education.”

Ayato did not say anything in response to Kanou, paying far more attention to what was being revealed in the capsule.

“I thought your interruption would be annoying, but it’s really an opportunity in disguise. I’ve read up on him, Arata’s gone crazy since the substitution medium incidents so besides Suzuya and Hanbee’s armor they haven’t harvested him for a while. So I had a question, genetics isn’t really my field of study, but exactly how much of this strength did you inherit? We’ll have to determine it experimentally.”

In the glass, Ayato saw staring back at him his own reflection. No, it was the face of another man staring back at him through the glass. Not the kind and smiling face he remembered though. His face was stained with blood and tears, even though he was sleeping, his expression was not peaceful at all. Then he woke up. He inhaled, bubbles rising up through the water and red already beginning to seep out of his mouth. Ayato watched the red color become diluted in the water, and seep into the bubbles, his eyes widening enough to catch these details in slow shock.

Then suddenly, the images which played out for him in slow motion, sped up to twice the speed. The moment that man’s pitch black eyes opened, he screamed out agony, using his head to crash through the glass.    
  
One, two, staggering steps forward. Ayato did nothing at all to stop it. He did not cry out what the hell, nor did he watch to see where Kanou went after this point. Instead, he watched in slow horror as the black kagune which already surrounded that man grew several tentacles which slowly wrapped around and devoured the man’s face.

“Oh I get it. So that’s where you are.”

_ This is…  _  
_This is…._  
_What the hell is this?_  
_How the hell did I end up here?_

“My lousy pop.”

♔

Ayato watched Kaneki’s back disappear in front of him. Once again the king was going on another mission to parts unknown. When he tried to insist on coming along, Kaneki told him to stay behind and protect Hinami.

Ayato glanced sideways, looking for a hopeful moment to see if Hinami was looking at him. Hinami’s gaze however, stayed transfixed on the horizon. For as long as Kaneki’s image was there, and then after it disappeared too. His eyes trailed to her hand, her empty looking hand. Ayato saw it tremble.

His own fingers flexed. When Hinami began to walk ahead of him, he snapped out of his hesitation and began walking too. As long as it was walking two steps behind her, he did not mind following behind her like a loyal dog. 

They never formally agreed on a destination, but the place they ended up was the abandoned Aogiri base. The shattered old greenhouse. Hinami had only ducked away here once when things with Akira became too much to handle. At that time it was completely barren.

Now, Hinami had been planting flowers there in her spare time. She had much more spare time than Ayato, as Kaneki rarely called on her for Goat missions. In fact, she was much more free now than she had ever been in Aogiri.  
  
Yet, just like in Aogiri, Hinami always seemed to carry a despondent look in her eyes. Ayato wondered why that was. Hinami told him at the time, Touka, Kaneki, or rather her big sister and her big brother, she was not strong enough to be around them. She was lonely without them at the same time.

Now they were around, and Hinami was strong, but she still… Ayato’s empty hand tightened. He realized he had spent far too long staring at Hinami, watching her tend to the flowers with a small watering can. She was either completely used to his presence or did not notice him, but he had not said one word to her this entire time.

Ayato decided then, he needed to say something. Even if it was absolutely the first thought that crossed his mind, he was going to say it out loud with no regrets. “Are you okay with Koumon Rota?”

Okay, there was possibly room for regrets.

“Huh?” Hinami said, tilting her head not quite getting it.  
  
“No I mean, Koumon taro- that guy with the huge eyebrows! You told me about him you know, are you really okay with Kaneki putting himself in danger for that guy’s sake?”

“Big brother… he probably doesn’t know…”  
  
“What do you mean he doesn’t know? You told me yourself he was standing right there. You said he was the one who watched instead of you.”

He only heard bits and pieces but he patched it all together. A rainy day, an umbrella dropped, an unfinished sentence, and then her eyes were covered. Two men, two ghoul investigators stopped them, they smelled heavily of her father. Rather, they smelled of his blood, his corpse.  
  
“How did you even remember all of this Ayato? I told it to you so long ago…” Hinami said as she gripped her sleeve again. Ayato watched the way her delicate fingers seemed to hold on hard enough to threaten to tear the thread.

Ayato did not have a good response to that question. He wanted to kick himself for ruining the mood. He should have been happy enough to be near Hinami again, even if it was only in quiet melancholy. There was a circumstance where he very nearly wasn’t able to see Hinami again anymore.

Kaneki saved her that time. That’s why he needed to shut up now. The answer to her question though, he actually did know it. He remembered those things because he thought they were important.

He just could not say. “You should talk to Kaneki, instead of talking to me. If it was you telling him, I’m sure he’d understand.”

“Ayato…”  


“If you don’t want to, then I can tell him about it for you. I can grab him by the collar and drag his ass in front of you if you’re too scared to do it yourself.”

“Ayato, please! Can we talk about something else? I know you want to stand up for me, I know you think I’m letting others walk all over me because I just can’t help it, because I’m weak. Maybe that’s true, and maybe I would be happier if you stepped in to protect me. That time… when that silly man stood up for me in front of big sister I was happy but still I…”

Ayato remembered it. She ran off and he followed, only after Furuta told him to do so. Much earlier that strange clown man yelled at him to man up and hug her. He tried to do so, but as he reached for her he noticed something off about her face. Hinami was not just crying, she was crying and smiling at the same time.

He did not understand, but he wanted to. More than Tatara who he admired, more than Eto who he obeyed, more than his father, more than his mother - from the moment he met her, back then, he tried real hard to grasp her essence.

He did not say anything though, merely let her words trail off. He did not understand, or rather he could not understand.

“I wanted to do it alone, without relying on the strange smiling man or anyone else.”

“...”

Not anyone else, that also meant not him of course.

“Kaneki’s so lonely you know… that’s what Takatsuki-sensei told me. He’s a person who wants to be loved…”  
  
“...”

Kaneki was standing up alone over all of them. The image of him wearing that eyepatch, of him walking away, of the sight of his back had begun to dominate Ayato’s mind.

“Hey, Ayato. Do you ever think, maybe the reason Touka was born first was because she was so strong?  


“Huh?” He broke out of his stupor for a moment, then scratched the top of his head like there were fleas there. “You mean my sister, well yeah she’s strong, and a pain in the ass about it sometimes too.”

“You should be nicer to your sister you know, it’s good for siblings to get along…” Hinami looked at him and offered him that same smile as last time. That same smile with tears in her eyes. They kept running back to this place and talking.  
  
This garden, this eden, it was shattered and yet still beautiful…

No wait, fuck that flowery crap, it wasn’t beautiful at all. He was getting tired of it. Dogs had excellent memories and could always find their way home, but even they wanted to smell some new scenery every once in awhile.

“That’s bullshit, and you know it!” Ayato finally barked at her, his balled up fingers twisting into fists as he did. “You say you want to do things alone, and that I should get along with my siblings,and then you’re all like Kaneki this! Kaneki that! How’s it doing it by yourself if you’re going Kaneki, Kaneki, Kaneki, Kaneki, Kaneki, Kaneki the entire fucking time!”

Even though Ayato belted it at the top of his lungs, Hinami was hardly phased at all. She blew out a puff of air. “Ayato, there you go again blowing off hot air. Really, you should just say what you’re thinking instead of getting like this.”

“It ain’t hot air! Or at least somebody’s gotta be hot here because you’re putting everything on ice…” He took a deep breath, even though he would never admit in a hundred years to her hot air comment. “You’re doing everything you can for him, not just you, we’re all here. If Kaneki says he’s still lonely when we’re all here than it’s his fault. What can we do?”

“You’re right… There’s nothing, there’s nothing I can do. That’s why it’s my fault.”

♔

The wind stirred the fur on the collar of his jacket, causing it to irritate his neck. On the ground, the wind had been just fine, but it picked up with altitude. After leaving Hinami alone in silence, Ayato climbed to the top of the roof of the :Re cafe. Recently, it seemed they all ended up here one way or another.

Ayato knew exactly what he wanted to say back there. He wanted to tell Hinami that she was not weak. That she was strong. He could even list off all the times she had been strong. At the auction, she saved Haise when nobody else could even stand up to Seidou. She sat in prison all that time and never once lost hope. Then, even after sitting in that prison she used her kagune to defend all of them against two special classes.

Not Touka, not Kaneki, not even him… even they could not do those things, those things which only Hinami was strong enough to do. Yet, when he opened his mouth nothing came out. He had never been quiet before in his life, he did not know what to do.

So he sat quietly on the rooftop, one of his legs hanging off the edge, and one of his knees drawn up to underneath his chin. Up above him, stars dotted the sky. He reached out and held two fingers around one of them, before crunching the star in between his fingers. They were such tiny things. The moon’s light shining down almost completely drowned them out.

That time at the Cochlea, when he left Aogiri, when he got on his knees in front of Banjou, all for Hinami’s sake he thought things were really going to change. When they got back, it was more of the same though. He was his thirteen year old self, getting into fights for the cool headed white haired man ordering him around  and Hinami was her thirteen year old self, tiptoeing quietly around Kaneki.

Perhaps it was wrong of him to complain though. Did he join Aogiri because he genuinely wanted change in the first place?

Do you want to tell me your secret?

What is it you’re trying to do in Aogiri….  Can’t you see I’m trying to talk? Shut up and listen.

His bones shook with the memory. In the distance, at least one building over he heard a flock of birds taking off. Ayato had stopped trying to think about things, it was useless anyway. He closed his eyes, shutting himself off from the moon’s light, and tried to listen to the noises in the darkness around him.

That did not last long, as he suddenly opened them once more when he heard footsteps behind him. He sharpened his red gaze, and felt his kagune bubbling up already just behind his shoulder blades instinctually preparing for being attacked from behind.

Then he spotted a familiar leopard spotted coat. Ayato tilted his head, letting the black drain from his eyes. “Oh, it’s just that old man.”

“Mmm…” Renji Yomo said quietly, before lifting his gaze slightly. “What do you mean, oh it’s just that old man? Did you really forget my name?”

 “Right, sorry. Oh it’s just that old man that’s always following my sister around.”

Renji nodded his head. “Thank you…” Then slowly, “Hey, wait…”  Yomo did not put any kind of fight up besides that though. He merely walked all the way to the opposite corner of the roof. He quietly assumed a crouching position that was eerily similar to Ayato’s.

“Hey, why’d you walk all the way over there?” Ayato called out to him.  
  
“Well, you’re in my spot…” He muttered again.

 “It ain’t got your name on it!” Ayato called back at him again.

“That’s not what I meant. Usually though, when I need a break I find myself in high places. I think I like them, or at least that’s what Uta says about me.” Renji did not look at him, and Ayato to return the favor did not look back. Ayato was sure this was the longest conversation ever held between the two of them.

 “What drove you up here this time, then?” Ayato asked, genuinely curious. Though he was sure from that old man he was not going to get a straightforward answer.  
  
“I walked in on Furuta and Touka doing something incredibly upsetting, apparently it was a goodbye kiss, but it was much more than just a kiss.”

“Why the hell would you pick now of all times to start talking straightforwardly.”  
  
Ayato wished in that moment that Renji would be vague and unhelpful like he usually was. He also wished he could drag out his own ear drum, or even bite off his own ear like Yamori had apparently done to Naki once. He wanted to look back at Yomo to see if the other was alright, but he felt his eyes physically rolling back in his skull or something like that.

Then again, the worst that strange smiling man had done to them was try to kill them once. Even Tsukiyama had tried to kill them once (Touka twice if you were keeping track of those things). Kaneki even had broken half the bones in Ayato’s body, Ayato remembered with another shiver.

In comparison, it seemed the smiling man was rather minor, or even a minor character. Perhaps they had stopped him, before he could commit anything more major. Ayato did not really know, nobody told him these things.

“Hey, you…” Renji muttered slowly, before finally looking back up at Ayato. “Why did you come up here then?”

Ayato realized exactly at that moment, even though he had been sulking and going over the details of that scene in his head over and over again he actually had no wish at all whatsoever to tell the old man what had happened between him and Hinami.

“Hey old man, are you my uncle?”

Yomo Renji stared at him in shocked silence. Though the only way the shock showed on his face was a slight widening of his eyes. “It’s rude to answer a question with a question, you know.” He finally said quietly.  
  
“I think my question is pretty fucking important, it takes precedence!” Ayato said, letting his knee fall down off the rooftop so he could kick his legs to add an emphasis of annoyance to his loud words.

“Uhm, Yes,” Yomo said, and then a pause, because of course there was one, “I am…”

“So?” Ayato snapped back at him.

“What do you mean, so?”

 “I mean so, when were you planning on telling me?”

“Well, you already knew so…”

“What do you mean, so!”

“Hey, that’s my question…” Yomo’s voice trailed off again once more.

There was silence between the two of them. Ayato had his long suspicion confirmed, but the realization that he had an uncle did not end in the two of them reuniting and tearfully hugging one another. In fact, he saw out of the corner of his eye, Yomo scooting away on the rooftop so that there would be even more room between the two of them.

“Here’s my question then, why didn’t you go after me? You were my uncle, and I was your nephew, but you just let me run away like I was some dog? No wait, if I was a dog you might have actually bothered to look for me.”

Yomo was quiet for a long time. As if he was never expecting to be asked this question, or instead, he had been avoiding it for a long time. “I did look for you. I saw you from afar.”

“Then what?”

“I went back home and told Touka there were rumors of you tearing up one of the wards.”

“You went back home and you left me there then…”

“That’s not… you were the one who ran away you know! What was I supposed to do?”

“You could have gone after me, talked to me…”  
  
“You would have just attacked me the same way you attacked Touka.”

“That’s not… I didn’t… I did but, you’re way stronger than she was at the time. You could have kicked my ass and dragged me back if you wanted to, you coulda but you didn’t even try.”

“I… you’re right… I didn’t want to look at you. When I look at Touka, I can see my sister again. When I look at you, I see your father, but more importantly, I see myself. When I was your age too, I took many lives, and did whatever I pleased because I couldn’t accept my own weakness.”

_It’s not… Don’t you turn this around me about being weak._  
  
_You were the one who should have been strong._  
  
“I was just…”

He wouldn’t say it.  
  
He would not say that he was a kid, he could not admit that fact. Every single fiber of his being was resisting him from spitting it out.

“It stings too much to look at me huh, is that why you’re always hovering around Touka and avoiding me, old man?”

Yomo stopped looking at Ayato once again. He guessed that one was never going to call him uncle. Still, he wanted to speak up now. The way he used to practice, whispering every morning to the bird in the cage. He wondered where that bird went now. It couldn’t fly on it’s own so…

“You both… I loved you both. You two are, my only reasons for living, the mark I want to leave on this world, my hope…”

Ayato pulled his legs up off the ledge and jumped to his feet. He dusted his jacket off by harshly hitting it with his hands, he hated when that thing got dirty. He did not even stick around to listen to Yomo finish his speech. “Shove it! Find your own goddamn reason to live. I don’t want to put up with a halfassed uncle right now.”

Half-assed?

Oh, but he said Uncle after that.

Yomo did not know if it was a good thing or a bad thing, but he was finally called Uncle by that one.

♔

First his sister, and then his uncle. Hinami said family should not fight. He supposed he had started a fight with Hinami. He really was like a dog without a master, barking up and causing a fuss. Removing his mask from the inside pocket of his coat and laying it over his face before he went to go outside at night was second nature to a ghoul like Ayato.  
  
He stopped with the black rabbit mask centimeters from his face. He turned it around in his hand, and then stared into then empty eyeholes. If there was some deep meaning in the gesture, it eluded Ayato. He reached no point of revelation. Instead, he got tired of thinking and threw the mask on the ground.

“I make a terrible rabbit, after all.”

With his next step he was sure to break the mask underneath his foot. It was childish and frivolous but at least it gave him a place to go next. Especially with Yomo taking up room and ruining the atmosphere of his favorite sulking spot.

Ayato walked down the stairs that led into the HYSY Art Mask Studio. Without checking to see if it was still open, he barged through the doors. When he saw the room was not lit, and there were sheets drawn over almost every single table he walked over to one of the long white sheets and pulled it off.

Uta stood underneath, sitting the wrong way (instead of sitting he was more crouching and drawing his knees up to his chest). “Yo. My mask broke, do you think you can make me a new one?”

“That’s surprisingly straightforward coming from you.” Uta said, as he straightened up and stepped off the table. Ayato thought he might have been getting to work right away, but rather he walked past Ayato, and climbed atop a unicorn decoration that Uta had probably stolen from some carousel somewhere.

“What’s that supposed to mean? You know there doesn’t have to be a backstory or hidden meaning behind everything!”

“Ah, that’s more like the Ayato I know.” Uta said, leaning against the neck of the horse as if he was lounging. Ayato realized at this rate he was not going to get any work done. Perhaps that was what he wanted though.

“What’s that supposed to mean, you been spying on me?” The Ayato he knew? He had no memories of the clown. The only clown he interacted with that much was Nico, and he was alright except for all the time he spent hanging around a guy like Yamori.

“No, maybe I would bother for Touka, but not you. Still, I hear things through the grapevine, like from Nico, and Yomo too.”

Ayato’s eyes widened at the mention of his uncle. He did not want the clown reading his face though, so he looked away almost too forcefully. In his attempts to be subtle he was likely even more obvious.  “Oi, keep me out of your gossip.” He finally said, kicking imaginary dust with his shoe.

“It’s not like he can help it, the moment Itori slips him some blood it’s Ayato this, and Touka that, a few Kens are thrown in as well. Nico will gossip whether they’re sober or not, so I can’t help that. Oh speaking of…”

Ayato did not know why the subject was suddenly changing. All he wanted was a mask and he was dragged into this suddenly. He crossed his arms in protest.  
  
“What was it like, Aogiri? Nico got a chance to experience it from the inside, but I only saw it that one time we rescued Kaneki.”

Ayato heard Uta’s back crack as he stretched himself in a catlike way while lounging on his unicorn, and he nearly winced at the noise. “Well it’s, now that I think about it the way I felt in Aogiri and the way I feel now aren’t that different. I was a little worried at first, when Kaneki said he wanted to talk with the ghoul investigators.”

“Why, are your language skills bad?”

“I’m speaking to you just fine ain’t I! I mean, it’s not like if I stopped to chat with Arima he woulda stopped. They never stop you know, mothers, fathers, sisters, that’s why you have to stop them before they get to you.”

Uta idly chewed on his thumb nail while they talked. Ayato wondered why he was doing that as the nail polish designs he drew out on each nail seemed intricate and hard to duplicate. “That Kaneki… he’s never what you expect, right?”

“No, he’s strong as hell!” Ayato said, a smile unintentionally spreading across his face as he said that. He could forgive his ass being beat that one time, if Kaneki really was not as half assed as he initially thought him. “I guess that’s the one difference, in Aogiri the king was invisible so nobody really knew who they were fighting for. Some of us were close I guess, but it was like we were all rounded up from wherever the wind scattered us to begin with. Tatara said…” Ayato paused in remembrance of that pale haired man, who looked and walked a path of death.

Oh, he was dead now. “He said we were stray dogs, and that strays could easily replace strays. Goat is, everybody has Kaneki to fight for, to believe in, so it should be different, and Kaneki too, he’s strong as hell so that should be different.”

Uta did not even need to prod him anymore. It seemed from that point, Ayato walked himself forward of his own accord, a dog with the leash in his mouth. “Kaneki though, he makes Hinami feel weak. Even though he’s so strong…”

There were two wires in his mind but they failed to connect. Hinami’s hand was in front of him, but he could not reach out for her. Uta spoke up and interrupted him. “That’s sad you know, for someone like you who no matter how strong you are, never wins, it is a pity. “  
  
“Huh?”

“Everything you think about only assumes that you will lose, every gamble only considers that you will lose, you are merely trying to stave off the inevitable loss. If you get stronger and raise your rank, a stronger opponent will show up inevitably and make you feel inferior. If you reconnect with someone, you’ll find yourself drifting away from them slowly. Even if the girl you liked was naked in front of you, you’d never become her partner.”

Ayato’s face turned bright red. He wanted it to be from anger, he hoped it was from anger. “What the hell does any of that have to do with making my mask?”

“When I make a mask for someone I want to understand their personality. So, why did you join Aogiri?”

“Oh, you’re back to making friendly conversation huh, like you didn’t just insult me. People aren't just your little dolls to pull the limbs off you know.”

“Ayato, did you bring the money for a mask? I don’t think that fancy jacket of yours has any pockets.”

“Oh so you wanted to learn the reason I joined Aogiri as payment, right?  I uh… well I was pissed off. I was tired of hiding the fact that I was a ghoul. Pops always hid it, and look what good it did him.”

Uta looked at him then with both of his black eyes. Somehow, despite their entire conversation being anything but, his gaze looked oddly honest. “Then what are you going to use a mask for?”

♔

Whatever was in front of him, whether it be an angel, the devil or his own father, Ayato needed to strike forward with strength to bring it down. The back of his shirt tore with sudden force, as two eyeballs opened up in the mist of kagune formation that leaked from the open skin of his back. Then in the next moment, he solidified them into crystal shards.

Even though it was not his usual style, the incensed Ayato charged straight in. He swung one of his wings forward throwing a barrage of crystal shards. They all bounced uselessly off of the black armor. At the last moment Ayato realized his attack would not penetrate, and he slammed both of his heels into the ground to jump back reversing his direction entirely.

At the spot where he had been a moment ago, two tails unwound themselves from Arata’s armor, and keeping their spiral formation struck forward. If he had jumped back just one second later, both of those kagune would have impaled him.

Which meant his father would have killed him. Ayato grinded his teeth against one another as he landed once more. Ukaku were naturally weak against Koukaku. Especially with a perfect defense like the kakuja had in front of him. Ayato knew this well in advance though, this was always how he had trained to make up for his natural weaknesses. It was the reason he was a close range specialist.

He eyed the tanks which surrounded Arata. They were arranged in rows. Ayato rushed for one of them, and easily ran up the sides. As he jumped to the next he flipped through the air and unleashed a full volley of kagune shards. Arata when he was struck from the side, realized the direction he was being attacked from and sluggishly began to move that way like a zombie.

By the time Arata reached him though and slammed into the tank, Ayato jumped to the next one. With his father’s back turned to him, he shot a full salvo with both wings, only to see them bounce off as uselessly as the last.

This is like that time, Ayato thought. As he remembered himself jumping all around in the air around a white reaper, only to see every single one of his shots deflected with the two quinque he was carrying. Even when he struck from behind, he saw the reaper turn suddenly blind and draw up a quinque behind his back to defend against him.

For a human to shrug off all of his attacks as if he were so useless. For his kagune to fail to even scratch Arata’s armor. What was all of his ill-begotten sterngth for then? If all he could do in this moment was buzz around like a butterfly waiting to be caught n a child’s hand, and have each of his wings torn off.

_ All of the inadequacies in this world, are due to the strength of the individual. _

He said that once.

_ Your wing isn’t able to fly anywhere. _

He said that too.

Two wings were not enough, if he needed to fly he would need more. The veins behind his eyes pulsed, he felt them swell up underneath his skin as he summoned it up. Unlike the higher ups of Aogiri, Ayato still did not understand the technical terms. Rc Cells, Rc pathways, he didn’t give a shit where it came from he needed more.

The two wings behind his back, they both split two times, until he had six in total. He rushed forward once more, his wing like structures extending as masses built of solid kagune crystal. Two of them pierced into Arata’s shoulders, and the bottom two guarded against the two tails the armor was attacking with. The final two he attempted to drive straight through his father, only for Ayato to see Arata raise a clawed gauntlet. He grabbed the tail end of one of Ayato’s attacks, blocking it from going into his chest, and crushed it between his gauntlet fingers as if it were made of glass.

Arata who had been stumbling until now though, awoke from the sense of pain that was the last prong of Ayato’s attack pushing into one of his ribs. He smashed down with his hand to break that one too, and the scales of his armor already began to knit up the wound. Arata thrashed about widely, breaking all of the wings that were pinning him similarly. In the split second that Ayato was thrown off his feet, he rushed forward to make use of the opening and struck forward with his clawed gauntlet alone.

Ayato heard a sound like metal sliding against other metal. He looked down and saw his father’s hand inserted into his chest, just near the shoulder blade. He had never landed, his feet were still hovering off the ground as he was being held up by Arata’s height. This entire time he had been avoiding looking at Arata’s face, but now he saw it, two red eyes glowing underneath the three prongs which covered his face like a helmet. They rolled around wildly, but slowly slid into place to look at Ayato.

Ayato did not give him time though, he quickly pushed both of his legs against Arata’s chest, and pushed back with absolutely all of his might. He felt the slow sensation of having to drag himself off of his father’s hand which had pierced through him, and then he was free and he fell back on the ground. Ayato rolled out of the way, just in time to see Arata strike where he had been a moment ago.

So that was it, his father was also strong as hell. It was just as Touka said, he must have killed so many CCG officers to end up in this place. Whether he was strong or weak though, the CCG would have come to kill him anyway.

Ayato Kirishima, whose entire world had been strength until that point, hesitated. If strength did not save his father, nor his mother, then what did? Oh, but people like Arima and Kaneki were strong though. What was the difference between them and him? Was it random chance? Were they chosen by some god?

It didn’t matter. Whether he lived or died. Whether he was strong or weak. Whether his father was kind or cruel. If strength did not matter, then in that moment Ayato released himself and realized that nothing mattered. He rushed forward suddenly and pounced to reach his father. His mouth out, feral, he drove his teeth into Arata’s armor. None of his attacks could reach, but the serrated teeth of a ghoul chewed through it just fine. Arata screamed and pierced through Ayato with both of his tails, Ayato felt it in his gut, and arm as he was thrown back but it did not matter.

If strength did not matter, then things like pain did not matter. He was chewing, he needed to swallow. He felt the half chewed and rough meat slide down his throat, it tasted metallic. Until this point, Ayato like a point of superstition had done his best to avoid eating other ghouls. He was right to do that, that tasted like absolute shit.

As he stood up once more several eyes bloomed from his back, but rather than two wings this time he only had one. He called the kagune forward in a spiral formation. It wrapped around his arm, turning it into one big sword. He rushed forward again slicing at his father, and in one clean swing cut the two tails that moved after him automatically.

Ayato was not thinking of the combat, he merely let instinct guide him. What he thought of was elsewhere. The time with Hinami and Seidou, Hinami moved all on her own and he could not save her. The time with Hinami and Arima, he could not reach Hinami in time, Naki held him back. The time with Cochlea, Arima stood in his way to Hinami. He could not even make it past the bridge to find her. The time in the sewers, Ayato was taken out in one round by a quinque missile and he had to watch barely conscious as Hinami took hit after hit, trying to defend them with her large kagune.

Every single time, Kaneki was the one to show up and save them. Every single time, he was right there watching as it happened. That time, that time, that time as well.

When Hinami told him that she was weak, he wanted to speak up more than anything. What stopped him, he wondered. What did he want to say. What was it that really bothered him.

Outside, Ayato and Arata clashed against one another. Their fight had lost all grace from Ayato’s ducking and dodging around, instead with his kagune sharpened like a sword, he bashed against Arara’s armor. Arata in turn raised his arm in the air, and continued to strike against his son. The two of them exchanged blows over and over, but neither of them seemed to reach the other. Blood, and scales of kagune armor were thrown up in the air behind them.

What really bothered him was, what he wanted to say was… what… what… Ayato had never felt this strong before, he knew he was strong but… he...he… he… he was the strong. He felt himself slip away from his body, and his reactions became more and more primal. Not a rabbit, not a dog. The moment he saw an opening appear in Arata’s defense, he swung forward with the whole of his arm slashing down on his father’s head and dragging his blade all the way across his father’s chest.

Arata’s armor was finally peeled open. He saw underneath the faceplate, a single eye the side of his father’s face, the corner of his mouth. Not just the glow of Kakugan, he saw the black of the sclera, and the pupil. The eye once again rolled around to focus on him. Ayato only needed one more blow to finish this. Now that he had torn a hole in the armor, he would strike straight through to win.

Then something happened, he saw the corner of his father’s mouth wrinkle. “Ayato….” he said in such a soft whisper that Ayato really should not have been able to hear. That one single word however, brought Ayato out of his beast like frame of mind, and made him hesitate. The kagune that was around his arm crumbled into a blood mist.

In the next moment Arata grabbed Ayato by the face, and he felt his skull crunch under the pressure of his father’s fingers. Dragged back into the body of a person, he felt all of it. He was thrown back onto the floor once more. As his head rolled uselessly to the side, he could feel on the side of his face, honey… honey was dripping down he tasted it. He licked it off of the floor like he was a mutt.

Then he pushed his fist into the floor, and slowly raised himself up again. He got just about to halfway standing up, and slowly raised a bare fist to his father. It stopped just short of hitting him though, and fell uselessly in the air. Ayato’s entire body began to drift forwards to the floor. He stared quietly forward, saying and thinking nothing at all.

“The boy reached forward and said be my friend? Godot smiled happily and shook his hand back, the end.”  
  
“Again!”

“Huh?”  
  
“Me too, me too!”

_ His father smiled at him. He closed the book, and then slowly looked for another one they had hiding around the apartment. Halfway through that book though, Ayato found his eyes were heavy. Next to him in the warm blanket, Touka already had fallen asleep. He reached out to her, but his hand was too heavy to move. _

_ Arata reached forward and gently patted him on the head. Ayato felt the warmth of his father’s hand, and then in the next moment it was gone. His father disappeared into the darkness. _

_ “Goodnight, Touka… Ayato…” He heard his father’s voice, and then the sound of the light switch being turned off. Touka was still asleep but Ayato stirred slightly. He opened his eyes and raised his head from his pillow, just in time to see the image of his father’s silhouette disappearing from behind the door. _

_ Ayato stared as his father’s face disappeared, and then sometime after. At the time he thought nothing of it, and closed his eyes again and fell into peaceful sleep. The next morning, his father did not come back home. _

“Dad…” Ayato called out, in a childish and sleepy voice.

His whole body collapsed forward.

Being a person however did have it’s advantages, the sentence he had been trying to finish, the line suddenly became so clear to him.

_ You’re not the weak one Hinami, it’s me. _

_ Oh, that’s right I should have told her that. _

_ I guess it’s too late now. _

“Really, what were you expecting to happen? That if you screamed hard enough or powered up enough you’d suddenly turn the tables of the fight at the last moment,” Furuta Nimura said appearing in the corner of his vision.

Ayato could not say anything in response, so he merely gurgled. He was trying to say fuck you, but he was sure Furuta could not hear him.

“Well, I can’t blame you. I more than anyone else can sympathize with the desire to kill one’s father.”

I didn’t…   
I wanted to…   
I wanted to be strong enough to save you…   
But I was just some snot nosed brat back then…   
Even now though, even when I’m strong I still can’t put you out of your misery….   
There’s nothing I can do for you…

_ Nothing’s changed since then…   
I left Touka behind, I ignored my uncle, I made Hinami stay in Aogiri, all for nothing… _

Was hope a lie? Despair made it seem so. He felt something tearing apart his leg. Oh, his father was going to eat him he realized. Some animals practice cannibalism of their young in the wild. Now that he was going to become a corpse soon, he supposed it did not matter for the corpse collector who the corpse belonged to.

In the back of his mind, Ayato heard a clown was laughing.

“Did you really think you could do it all alone?”

♔

Before he could answer Uta’s question, suddenly the door flew open again. “Ayato!” Touka cried out. Before Ayato could say anything at all, he saw the worried look on his sister’s face and softened his glare.

Kaneki came back, and he was hurt. Both Seidou and Kurona looked pissed off that they had been played by Furuta of all people. He heard the story as Kaneki was being tended to in the back room.

“We should probably just leave him, let him have his heroic final act if he thinks that makes up for anything that’s his business,” Ayato said, pragmatically as he grit his teeth in annoyance. He still wanted to punch that damn clown in the jaw for spying on him and Hinami. “Kaneki’s still here anyway so…”

Touka looked down on the floor. “I don’t want to have to choose again.”

Ayato looked up at her. “That guy made his choice already, what are you talking about?”  
  
“It’s always this one or that one? Who is more important? Who can you live without? I’m tired of it, over and over again. Eventually it’ll just be alone me either way, so why should I have to choose?” Touka slammed her fist on the coffee counter, drawing the eyes of everyone else. "Just this once, can't everybody live?"  
  
Hinami, Koori Ui, Tsukiyama, Hairu, and then himself. All of the ones Kaneki sent away last mission, they had all come back here gathered by Touka herself. All of them too had the misfortune to have interacted with that smiling man.

In the corner Koori Ui sat down, and in his lap quite blatantly was Hairu Ihei. She had her back to the rest of them and did not even seem to be aware of what they were discussing. “Ui, what do you think about the scars on my neck?”

Ui reached forward with a bare hand, and pulled the ribbon down he had given her to touch her scar. “These scars are the proof of your revival, I love them.” He traced the pattern slowly across her neck.

“Hmm, what do you love about me then Ui? I want to know so I can learn about love.” She asked once again, girlishly innocent as if they were not in a bar full of monsters and cannibals at the moment.

“I love every part of you, there’s not a single part that I dislike. I especially like your scars though, they’re proof you’re still alive, they brought you back to me…” Ui said, gazing at her as if he were in a dream and not even a part of this world.  
  
“Can the lovey dovey couple in the back shut up, please!” Ayato yelled at both of them.

Ui immediately looked up, his eyes sharp. “What, are you jealous?” He was as ruthless towards ghouls as ever.

“I’m completely jealous!” Ayato yelled back, and then crossed his arms. “What the hell, I’ll go if I don’t have to look at those two anymore.”

Hinami raised her hand. “That man is funny, and he reminds me of O-niichan a bit.”

“I still haven’t paid him back for Matsumae yet.” Tsukiyama said with a hand on his chest, and a slight bow of his head.

Ui wrapped his arms around Hairu, and rested his chin on her shoulder to look at the rest of them. “I don’t want any children of that twisted garden to be plucked anymore, so for Hairu’s sake I can put up with a guy like him.”

Uta, who had come with Ayato and lingered in the doorway scratched the back of his neck. “If he’s still alive, then I want to see what his face looks like.”

Ayato scratched the back of his neck. “Some team you’ve gathered sis, it’s more like they all want a piece of him rather than they’re all uniting because they’re his friends.”

Touka looked up. She tilted her head so her hair fell out of her face and both of her eyes showed. She smiled, in an innocent and girlish way. “That’s fine, between someone who everyone loves like Kaneki, or someone who everyone hates like Furuta, I don’t see that much of a difference.”

♔

  
Ayato regained consciousness and saw even though his leg was twisted and torn apart, and he was still bleeding from his forehead enough so much so he had to close one of his eyes, that he was still alive.

He looked to see on either side of him, the armored Arata was being held down by Tsukiyama’s kagune, and Koori Ui’s quinque, Taruhi. The clown on the ground was being supported by Touka who had pulled his arm over her shoulder, and given him a white robe to wear. Ayato thought immediately that he better give his jacket back in that case.

He looked to his side and saw Hinami crying next to him. Ah, how worthless he was after all. If he made Hinami cry like that then he was no better than Kaneki. No wait, at least Kaneki was strong.

“Don’t cry…” he muttered, alerting Hinami to the fact that he had regained consciousness. “It’s because I’m weak so, it’s not your fault, don’t cry.”  However, even though he said the thing he wanted to say for so long, Hinami did not stop crying. She hunched over his chest, and began to spill tears on that. The sensation of Hinami holding onto him like that, it was warm.

Ayato wanted to enjoy the sensation, but he pushed her away. Slowly, he rolled onto his front, and punched the ground so he could stand up. Even on a twisted foot he stood, and the many colors of his kagune began to bloom from behind his back making a blood mist.

“I saw ghouls like this at Aogiri who got harvested. There’s no getting through to them, this is the only kindness we can give them.” He sharpened his kagune to a point once more and aimed it at Arata’s neck. This was the only kindness a person like him was capable of to begin with.

However, before he could strike he hesitated. His kagune slowly began to disparate, turning black into a blood mist. Something wet fell on his face once more, but it was not blood but rather tears. “Why can’t I… why can’t I even do this for him?” He asked, tears streaming down his face but neither Ui nor Tsukiyama had an answer. They looked away from him instead. “Why am I such a worthless son?”

“Ayato, shut up!” Touka called out to him. Ayato looked back suddenly, and showed his tear stained face to his sister. Damn, he was going to die of embarrassment now. “I’m the older sister, so let me!”

However, neither of them even moved a step forward. They simply stared at their father’s body on the ground, as his chest slowly raised and lowered. It turned out they did not need to decide though, as suddenly someone slipped forward and ripped Taruhi from Ui’s hands.

With the last of his strength, Furuta drove the spear straight into Arata’s neck. Arata cried out his last, and then died.

“It’s fine, because I already killed my father.” Furuta said, as his legs began to weaken underneath him. “My hands are already red though, so, it’s.. it’s it’s fine…” He slowly began to fall forward too, but Touka rushed forward to catch him.

“Your hair’s already turned, white idiot… so don’t exhaust yourself too much.”

Furuta caught his reflection again in the glass. Oh, so she was right. All of his black hair had drained away and turned white. Similarly, when Ayato began to drift forward, Hinami ran to him to catch him.

All of them stood silently, looking at Arata’s corpse in front of them. Not any one of them, not even that loud narcissist Tsukiyama Shuu had anything to say. Even though they were in the middle of an escape heist, they paused.

Ayato heard whispering in the background.

“How disappointing, I thought Ayato might be able to develop a kakuja if he killed and ate his own father.”

“Kanou, we should flee. V would get upset if we lose anymore subjects.”

“This is one way glass. They won’t see us from up here, but you’re always the pragmatic one aren’t you.”

“Our work isn’t finished yet. We can’t afford to be this reckless.”

“What an interesting response Kimi. A few years ago you would have been horrified at the notion of me feeding a ghoul their own father, I think you’ve gotten used to that much too quickly.”

“Don’t blame your bad habits on me, sir. I just want to finish the work we’re doing. We were so close… if only that clown hadn’t interfered. He doesn’t care about the big picture, or even the medical world. He just does what suits him most in the moment.”

“Isn’t the unpredictable interesting though?”

“I’m not doing this for what’s interesting, sir. I’d prefer the predictable. I… I’m not like you.”

“Yet you’re standing next to me. Oh well, I lost too much time playing around with Furuta, so can you see this through to the end in my stead.”  
  
“I don’t really have a choice now, do I?”

“Of course you have a choice. I wouldn’t want slaves and dolls for my assistants, they wouldn’t lend anything to my work at all.”  
  
“Huh?”

He heard the sound of the door shutting. Ayato with the last of his strength, pointed up in the direction where he heard the noise coming from.

“Oh, I see. He must have been watching from a heightened view. Feasting on the sight before his eyes, a spectator!” Tsukiyama Shuu called out, and threw his arm forward. His spiral kagune shot out like a spring and latched itself onto the wall. He ran up the rest of the way, and flung himself through the window.  
  
He shattered the glass before Kimi could even realize what was happening. In surprise she called out the first thing that came to mind when she saw Tsukiyama Shuu. “Narcissist-kun.”

Kimi scrambled backwards and looked at racks upon racks of test tubes. She grabbed one familiar looking substance and threw it in his face. The acid missed, and only dampened and burned away his shirt.

“Non! Do you know how expensive this is?” Tsukiyama Shuu rushed forward and grabbed her by the neck. He lifted her in the air, and put another hand around her mouth. “And I was about to say, it’s nice to see you again, Miss Kimi.”

When she was firmly secured in his hold, he jumped back down. “Look who I found, a touching reunion, no?”

“Kimi…” Touka said, her eyes widening.  
  
Ayato however, did not get it.

Once again he felt clueless. That’s what happens when you run away from home, you miss a few important details.  He thought finally resigning himself to that fact.

“Who the fuck is Kimi?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kimi Nishino is who the fuck is in the next chapter.


	16. Eat Your Feelings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nishiki almost becomes a pineapple.

An owl tip-toed in sandals. His black robe draped over him, in the night time he could easily be mistaken for a pale shadow.

As a child he remembered always being too scared to climb trees, because he was afraid of falling. No, he would be the one to stand back and lecture his friends about how unsafe they were being in a worried tone of voice.  
  
Now he ran up the side of one easily, looking more like a shadow lengthening in the night than anything person shaped. He held his hand out and caught a branch, then swung around before settling.

 If he were a person perhaps this could be considered stalking. However, birds belonged in trees. They were constantly watching with large eyes, impassively, unnoticed. Birds were born with sharp eyes for watching, but hollow bones so they could fly. Seidou wondered if that was the tradeoff, that was how they made themselves feel whole.

When he saw Akira walking away from Amon, he decided to follow her. Capricious as he was he could not really call it a whim, just a worry. Now that Amon had returned, he wanted nothing more than his old friend to wake up again and take Akira somewhere safe, somewhere far away from him, so he could sort out these lonely feelings in his heart the way they were meant to be.  
  
Alone.

 He told himself that, and yet, he found himself staring in her window still. Idly, chewing his fingers as normally. However, the moment he saw a tuft of green hair appear suddenly in the window that otherwise perfectly framed Akira’s image, he bit down so hard in shock he nearly ripped his own finger off to the bone.

 Eto Yoshimura, the owl orphaned by the CCG.  
  
Akira Mado, the CCG woman orphaned by the owl.  
  
Takizawa watched them both, as he was part CCG and part owl, both parts messily stitched together and worried that he might just be torn in two.

 “M-mother was tasty? How could she have possibly been tasty?” Akira stared forward in disbelief. She found the strangest part of Eto’s words to take issue with. Then again, even Seidou knew the story of how Kasuka Mado was found, completely torn apart and ravaged with nothing left of her. Not even most ghoul attack victims endured that level of bloodshed.

 Seidou could relate to the feeling though, from his perspective Kasuka got off easily. The worst thing in the whole world was not to be torn apart, but rather stitched together again.  
  
“I’m a ghoul you know. Perhaps I should have cooked her up for a better taste, but I was young and in a hurry so I decided on raw. Anything can be sushi if you try hard enough.” Kaneki had left the room but returned now with a plate. Rather than raw meat though, she was served something cooked, prepared with care, and even with a side dish of tooth-picks driven into eyeballs, that looked like rolled up bean paste. Eto did not even notice Kaneki sliding the dish into her lap. Rather, she acted like she was used to it.

Kaneki must have been the one feeding her then and keeping her here, he was a regular house husband. Eto picked up one of the eyeballs, and stuck it in her mouth, chewing on the toothpick for a moment.

 “Y-you eat people.” Akira said a second time. The shock of the situation not seeming to register, or perhaps she was still in shock. “My mother was… sushi? That’s the reason she had to die.”  
  
“Ghouls eat people, did they teach you that at the academy? You’re already associate special class huh, you must have been a bright one.” Eto said, as he picked up another tooth pick and licked the eyeball on it in order to savor. “I don’t know what you’re thinking, Kaneki Ken. Just because this woman can’t push her emotional burdens on little Hinami are you going to try to have her do the same to me now?”

 “Takatsuki-sensei. Not everything is as complicated and tragic as one of your books, you know. I just thought it would be nice if the two of you got along.” Kaneki said, as he smiled at her. He leaned forward noticing the blood on her cheek and tried to wipe it away with his gloved thumb. She smacked at his hand.

“Don’t show me such an ugly face while I’m eating. Otherwise I might want to eat that up too.”

“Oh, first you made me nameless king and now you want me to be faceless king? Even for a ghoul like yourself there has to be a limit to your hunger.”

 Akira looked at the strange interaction, feeling entirely left out of it. She did not even look capable of comprehending it. For a moment Takizawa envied her, her ability to fall completely into the world of ghouls but act as if she had nothing to do with it.

To Seidou it was clear, these two had been like this since at least the time Kaneki broke out of the Cochlea, and rendezvoused with all of them who had fleed Rueshima. Eto had been living here hidden away then, perhaps to avoid vengeful former Aogiri members who did not want their organization to become a sacrificial pyre of things to come, or perhaps because she too counted among the people Kaneki was now afraid to lose. Either way, they had slowly become entangled in one another, like two snakes devouring each other.

Seidou however, unlike Akira when he saw the woman had no strong feelings. The only time they had ever spoken outside of Aogiri meetings is when she said something like “Seidou, aren’t you hungry why don’t you go kill them then?” A toy that was thrown away from a child out of disinterest, probably did not feel much either, not much more than a slight bitterness about being passed over.  
  
“I think I’m just making things awkward by being here, at least that’s the atmosphere I’m getting. So I’ll just leave you two alone now, I really hope you can talk things out.”  
  
“But she’s-!” Akira immediately stood up.  
  
Kaneki scratched the back of his head as if he really were just trying to avoid an awkward situation. “Don’t worry, her fangs have been dulled a long time ago. She has no choice now but to submit to talking. She’s an owl just like Amon and Seidou you know, if you want to understand them you should understand her.”

 With that, the door shut behind Kaneki Ken. The two women were left alone, glaring at each other, one human, and the other a ghoul who did not care about happily eating human flesh in front of another human. She popped another succulent eyeball in her mouth.

 “How can you just sit there casually eating corpses like that?” Akira said.  
  
Eto did not even look up from her meal. “At least I don’t swing them around pretentiously like swords.”

 “Are you going to just blow me off with another ghoul sob story every single time I say something?”

 “No, but every time you try to list an atrocity that a ghoul has committed I’ll hit you back with a human one. I’m motivated by a deep inner complex. I’ve got no reasoning, you’ve got nothing to bargain with. Zero sum game.”

She popped another eyeball in her mouth.  
  
“Then this is pointless…” Akira said, crossing her arms and looking away from the horrifying sight in front of her. However, her lips pulled tight, and she only managed a few moments before her silence racked. “Why did you tear her apart into pieces? You still haven’t answered me that.”  
  
“I could say that I found my own guardian in pieces because of what your mother did, but that’s just another sob story, right? Hmmm, how about I answer a question with a question to be particularly annoying. What was your mother doing there in the first place.”

Akira looked back then, only catching one of the creature’s eyes. It was a deep scarlet. A disgusting color, she must have thought. Seidou wanted to put a hand over his own eye but he knew that was a pointless gesture. “It’s called a whack a mole operation. The CCG sent teams down to the 24th ward in order to extinguish high power ghouls that could live down there.”

"Down there in the sewers, hiding away from humans in the surface. You know until those humans found me I had never even eaten human flesh before, everything I put in my mouth was disgusting. We only ever ate other ghouls to survive. By your own definition then, weren’t we completely innocent of killing people up until that point?”

 "You would have become killers eventually…Even those ghouls children I saw at the park.”

 Eto happily pressed her bandaged hands together, connected her fingers at the pad. She looked like a giddy child in that moment, as she had reached the point she had been waiting for. “That’s exactly it. That day when your mother was fighting for her life, she wasn't fighting an unstoppable monster. She and a team of adults had come down the rabbit hole to exterminate a fourteen year old little girl. So tell me, why was she down there?”

 “You were going to become a threat on the surface soon. So many people would still be alive if my mother had succeeded in killing you.”

 Eto stood up then, placing the dish that had been on her lap to the side. As she moved, her feet were so light on the ground she seemed to dance. It was only then Seidou saw the injuries that covered her body. For once she seemed to actually need the bandages that were tied around her. She was even wearing them under the normal long skirts, and baggy looking sweatshirts she tended to wear in her human identity.

 “Hmm, see I don’t care about that. Cycle of revenge, self perpetuating violence, whatever, really!” Eto shrugged. “That was more Tatara’s thing than mine. We can argue back and forth all day whether I was right to kill your mom or your mom was right to kill me. It doesn’t really matter because she’s still dead and I’m alive. Have I mentioned she’s dead? I’m standing right here but she’s dead. Man, it’s great to be alive.”

 Akira’s nails were digging red streaks into her own skin. Seidou bit his lip, trying to contain his basic urge to storm in there. “Is there a point to all of this?”

 “Hmm, okay right. I’ll just answer the question for you.” Eto stepped over finally, perching herself on the tips of her toes so she could lean up and whisper to the sitting Akira. “The reason your mom was there that day, was because she didn’t give a shit about you.”

 “What.”

 Eto quickly withdrew, and went back to spinning on her foot and then landing a step or two away. “I’m just saying, she cared more about dying in some ditch then you. Oh, do you want to know the reason your father died too? He also didn’t give a shit about you.”

 “How do you know that?”

 Eto smiled again. There was blood in the corner of her mouth, but her own tongue lapped it up this time as she licked her lips. She looked like a snake about to pounce and swallow a mouse whole. “Hinami told me. She told me, that she stopped and tried to spare him. Even with one leg and one arm missing he could have tried to crawl home, but he had to keep trying to kill a 14 year old girl. See you’ve got me wrong, I don’t think either of your parents hated ghouls. In fact they loved them, they loved them way more than you.”

 “My mother and father loved me! What do you even know about love? You don’t love anybody at all!”

 Eto giggled, leaving her finger on her lip in a cutesy way. “Well, you may be right but… at least I’m not wasting my time loving people who don’t give a shit about me.” She turned around then and shrugged once more. “Well I’m sure if somebody who had been loved properly like Touka gave you the same advice, she’d make you realize that you loved your father all along and wanted to be with him. Of course she can say something like that, because my father raised her like a daughter instead of me. That advice is kind of useless in my opinion, though…”

 Once again, Eto tapped three consecutive fingers on her cheeks, and then her lips trying to think. It was a cutesy gesture, especially on a woman with such a small figure, but Seidou could not help but think it made it look like a spider was crawling up the side of her face. “You’re worried that you can’t love Seidou and Amon right, now that they’re ghouls? You’ve got it all backwards though, because you’re just like your father. You never loved either Seidou or Amon to begin with. You loved ghouls most of all. When Seidou ran off you stayed at your post. When Amon lay in the rain dying, you stayed at your post. When you knew Seidou was alive again, you stayed at your post. When you saw evidence that Amon might be too, you stayed at your post. If you left, you wouldn’t be able to kill ghouls anymore after all.”

 “How… that’s so twisted… how is that love?”

 "Oh, my, you shouldn’t seek a definition of love. Killing is a form of love. Even dying is a form of love. It’s not a problem that Seidou or Amon are ghouls, in fact it’s your lucky break. Now you can properly love them. Isn’t that right, Seidou boy?” Eto tilted her head back locking her green eyes on the window.  
  
Awkwardly, Seidou moved to the edge of the branch and then stepped through it. While he only had one foot through the window, he raised his head up. “Oi, Mado don’t listen to her too much. She’s just another crazy owl like me, always asking who? Who? Who?”

“Takizawa don’t come stepping into the conversation like some kind of hero, as far as I remember sitting outside of girl’s windows and snooping on them makes you more of a stalker.” Akira spoked coldly in an attempt to regain her composure, but her face was entirely hidden away from Seidou. He was not sure he wanted to see it too. That kind of face was meant for someone strong and reassuring like Amon.

“Way to assume everything is about you like always, Jeez! I actually wanted to find her.” He it down hard on one of his fingers in annoyance. “Really, only people who assume everything in the world is their fault like you and Kaneki get played so easily by her.”

 “Oh…” Akira said softly. Seidou almost winced at the sudden change of tone. He wanted to be soft with her as well, but he felt this abrasive personality from the old days was the only way he could speak to her.  
  
She started wearing her hair short again. Seidou noticed. He thought it was pretty. He wanted to say so, but what a ghoul found beautiful was probably disgusting to a human. Eto speaking up interrupted his train of thought and his finger chewing. “Oh, you’re looking for me? I’m so flattered. What was it for? Revenge?”

 “Eh…” And Seidou gave an apathetic shrug just like the many Eto had made. “That’s more Tartar sauce’s thing like you said. I just wanted to get some details straight since my head’s kind of fuzzy, and you’re the overly honest type, even if it hurts, especially if it hurts type anyway.”  
  
Eto nodded, once again looking proud of herself.

“You’re the one who handed me off to Kanou, right?”

“That’s right.”  
  
Seidou reached forward and put a hand on his chest. “Then the Kakuhou that’s inside of me, the reason it’s so similar to yours is because it comes from your father, right?”

“That’s right.” She confirmed a second time. “What an awful younger brother I have.”  
  
“I’d like to disagree but I really can’t…” Seidou said, looking away.

 Eto leaned forward towards him again. “Are you sure you don’t want that revenge. You could do something like making me eat my own father…”

 “Nah…” Seidou shrugged a second time. “I guess I do have another question, what happened to your guardian?”

 Eto for a moment, at the sudden brazen honesty of the question looked down at the floor. Her toes were small and bandaged, and not at all related or of interest to the current conversation but Eto made it like they were. “My guardian he was torn apart… so I tried to sew him back together. No matter how many stitches I added though, he wasn’t the same as before. No, I think I made it worse by adding stitches.”

Seidou looked at his own hand, and the contrast of the black of his fingernails, against the pale and corpse-like color of his skin. “Oh. I understand.” He then, rather flippantly changed the mood of his entire body language and began to walk away. “Well, I’ll leave you ladies alone then.”  
  
Before he could even make it a step though, Akira reached out and grabbed the black part of his Aogiri coat. He looked back at her with confused eyes of mismatched color. “Akira… you’re shaking.”

 A few minutes later, Seidou cursed himself once again as he had to lift Akira up on his back. Apparently, she felt too weak to even stand. What a terrible thing it must have been, to just be a normal human.

 “Forgive and forget, that doesn’t seem like you Takizawa. Are you just trying to be strong because there’s a woman near you?” Eto asked, smiling cheerfully as if she were just teasing an old friend.

 “That is exactly what I’m doing…” Seidou admitted.

 “Oh, I see. I guess you really can forgive it. You know both Tatara and I would watch when Kanou operated on you from time to time. Your screams were really pretty, you have such a nice voice. I hope I’ll be able to hear it again when Akira tries to make you into a quinque.”

 Takizawa’s eyes widened. “She wouldn’t, she’s not like you -witch!” He snarled, about to go feral. Then he remembered though, Akira was watching him. She was on his back even. He could not even take a single step towards Eto without dragging her with him.

 Instead, he turned around and simply tried to walk away, in his loosely fitting flip flops. They squeaked against the ground as he walked out.

 

♔

“You can walk the last bit yerself, can’t ya? I don’t wanna be called a pervert for breaking into a lady’s apartment.” Seidou groused as he stood nervously in front of another door with Akira holding onto his back.

She yawned, but reluctantly let go of him and moved to open the door herself. She lazily threw her jacket off and then her shirt, and did not care about her hair and makeup,  instead choosing to simply walk straight to and fall on the bed.

Despite what he had just said a moment ago, Seidou took a step into her apartment. He gathered the jacket and skirt that had fallen to the ground, along with her button up shirt and folded them into a neat little pile at the top of her dresser. An underwear drawer had been left open. Maris Stella sat at the top of the dresser and hissed at him. Terrified for his life, Seidou looked away.

Seidou moved to the foot of her bed for a moment, like a loyal corgi might. He knew, however, that she would sooner let a dog near her on her bed then him. He was much lower than a dog, and his bite was far worse.

 He turned away this time too, only to again have his cloak caught by Akira’s hand suddenly reaching out for him. He should probably stop dressing like this, Seidou thought. Akira cracked open one eye. “Are you just going to disappear somewhere again?”

 "Probably,” Seidou said. Whenever he could see himself reflecting in her eyes, it was impossible for him to lie to her. He was a twisted individual who often, compulsively, let twisted words fall from his mouth like the time he tortured Haise and called him Kaneki and yet when he was reflected in her eyes he looked so clear.

 “Do you remember, that night we all went out to eat together?”

 “Houji chewed my ass off for it the next morning. Well, I guess I got my revenge eventually.”

 “No… not about that… not about Houji. You, you went home early, but… what if that night you were the one who walked me home instead of Amon.”

 “Well then obviously, we would have had our first kiss, gotten married, solved the whole ghoul and human problem on our own, and then had two lovely children and adopted a corgi that did not get along well with your cat at all.”

 “I’m sherious…” She mumbled in her sleepy state.

Takizawa looked down at her. His brow tensed knitted, and his face wrinkled. He turned his head slightly so Akira’s eyes were no longer directly upon him. “Are you serious, then? Can you really rewrite your happy memories of Amon with me that easily?”

 Akira did not answer him. As she had already fallen asleep, exhausted already from a day’s worth of worry. Coward, Takizawa thought. He did not know who the real cowards was though, Akira, or himself.

 He tried not to think about it too hard, as he crawled out of the window, then flew away like Peter Pan.

 

♔

Tsukiyama dragged the struggling Kimi over his shoulder. He was fortunate to have experience kidnapping humans. Takizawa Seidou thought idly as he heard the loud ghoul, with a few others barge into the cafe while he was trying to enjoy a nice game of shogi with Rio.

However, Rio had already eaten three of the pieces and did not seem quite to grasp the rules no matter how many times Seidou tried to explain them. In the corner, Nishiki was the only one doing the heavy lifting of setting up the new tables they had ordered after Rio smashed all the previous ones. Roma was there as well, but Nishiki had ordered her not to touch anything so she sat in the corner supervising instead.

 Nishiki was only managing the cafe because Touka had asked him to in her absence. It’s not like he had much else going on in his life anyway besides being on call for their king. There was a backroom to the cafe, and then a stairway which led to the rooms upstairs which functioned as a normal apartment that might be rented atop cafe space like this. Seidou idly watched Nishiki move back and forth, from the back room where he was sitting, to the front where he set down the tables again.

 Seidou gave a cursory glance back at the board. Rio grabbed one piece, and then jumped it diagonal in a pattern over several of Seidou’s. Seidou simply tilted his head further, resting his cheek on his hand. “That’s checkers you’re thinking of, not Shougi.”

“Ora ra? Really? I’mma eat these pieces anyway though.” Rio said as he picked up the pieces he had ‘captured’ apparently from Seidou’s side and dropped them in his mouth. Seidou sighed. He only knew how to play Shougi because his father taught him, but he was no longer the boy that his father taught so he might as well not play the game.

 The noise from the front of the cafe finally traveled to the back room, as all together, Touka supporting Furuta by the shoulder, Hinami supporting Ayato by the shoulder, and then last Tsukiyama carrying a struggling woman in Aogiri robes and a lab mask over his shoulder. Tsukiyama seemed much less tender and romantic than the two previous couples which had crossed the threshold of the door.

 Nishiki suddenly froze and dropped the table which he was carrying easily over his shoulder. It fell on the ground with a loud clang. Roma from her spot in the corner spoke up. “Oi, be careful with the merchandise Nishiki-senpai, or I’ll put you on time out too!”

 Nishiki ignored her entirely, looking instead at the image of the struggling Kimi over Tsukiyama’s shoulder. The corners of his eyes widened slowly as he struggled to take all of it in. In the next moment, Nishiki had moved from his spot and was right next to Tsukiyama, and threw a great kick to the ghoul’s side. Before he could deliver another though, Tsukiyama had already moved to compensate and caught Nishiki’s foot with his hands.  
  
“Let go of her already…” Nishiki growled.  
  
“Je suis desole, mon’ami.”

 “We’re not friends and quit it with the french already you fuck, and let her go.”

 “I can’t…” Tsukiyama said, under his side swept bangs which hung to frame the side of his face long and beautifully, and as usual he wore a tragically sad expression.

On the other hand, Nishiki’s handsome face had grown quite ugly with barely held back rage. Seidou heard the snap of kagune formation, but before he could even move Touka had moved between them dragging a reluctant Furuta she was supporting along. “Nishiki, stop…”

 “Why… but Kimi, we’ve finally rescued her…”

 Touka looked at him with one eye. Her expression similar to Tsukiyama’s. Seidou wondered how he could have ever thought ghouls were emotionless in the past, when he had seen so many of them in this cafe constantly look like they were choking back sadness. The same kind of expression you got on your face when you were stifling nostalgia from rotten human meat that you ate.

 “You should have told us earlier… then maybe…” Touka began, before turning away. “It’s too late. We’re not rescuing her, we’re kidnapping her.”

 Nishiki reached forward and grabbed Touka’s bare shoulder. “Why?”

 “She’s done something unforgivable. She needs to be punished.”

 Furuta who had been hanging off of Touka like a rag doll until this moment, rolled one of his eyes to look at Nishiki. “No, I’m the one who's done something unforgivable.”

“Then I’ll punish you too…” Touka said, her voice gravelly as she moved along.

 When they all had cleared out, Nishiki fell onto his knees. In the corner, Roma was laughing. Seidou thought he might say something, but then Rio spat up a shougi piece that landed and stuck to the side of his face. He decided against it.

 Nishiki’s face reminded him of the same expression Ayato made when Hinami was taken to the cochlea. Back then Seidou opened his mouth and only spouted nonsense, it seemed to be all he was capable of.

 

♔

Seidou easily landed in another branch so he could peer in the window of the upper cafe. When he saw Touka walking in on Furuta who was already laying on the bed, he covered his eyes as if that would make a difference.

“Do you mind if I sleep her tonight.”

 “If that will make you happy.”

“What if I just kick you off the bed and hog it all to myself while you sleep on the floor?”

 “If that will make you happy.”

 “Hmm…” Seidou heard the sounds of her crawling onto the other bed.  “What’s wrong, did you find another girl?”

 “No, not even Rize anymore… I can’t think of her… only you.”

 “I see.”  
  
“You shouldn’t be happy about that, I’m just using you as her replacement.”  
  
“Are you unhappy?” Touka asked, her voice falling to a whisper.

“No,” Furuta said plainly.  
  
“Are you happy then?”

 “No,” He answered in the same voice as before. “Everything passes. That is the one and only thing I learned while watching everything from inside of that machine that scorched my back as a hard as burning hell.”

 “Mmm… whatever. You literature freaks always spout so much deep sounding crap…” Touka said as she nuzzled into him and fell asleep.  
  
Takizawa was already glancing in between the cracks in his fingers. They really were just going to sleep like that, but when he looked through the window all he saw was Touka clinging to Furuta, and Furuta impassively let her. He neither pulled her closer, nor pushed her away. He did not sleep either, the entire night, his eyes lay open and half-lidded as he watched the rise and fall of her chest.

Takizawa realized the other literature freak must have been Kaneki. He wondered for a moment if Touka was just like Akira, caught in between the two of them. Then he shook his head, this was a serious story about a rebellion against a society controlling the nation’s government after all, not a hackneyed romance.

 The next morning Touka rolled out of bed and Furuta did not. She showered and came back and asked if he wanted anything, to which he passively replied no. Takizawa realized at that point, he was not going to miss much so he jumped away from the tree and found something else to distract him for the rest of the day.

 When he came back, Furuta had not left the bed once all day. Takizawa did not feel the need to stay the night this time because he knew what would happen. For the next few days though, he dropped by, day by day, to see Touka limply attempt to get Furuta to leave the bed, only for him to make passive excuses not to.  
  
It was too hard to walk he would say. The sun is too bright outside. My body hurts too much still. I can’t eat anything because that machine stabbed me in the stomach and it all turns rotten. Touka in seemingly infinite patience accepted all of them with a smile. No matter how many times she was turned away, she would come back.

  _Are you happier?_ Seidou thought as he chewed on his finger. _Now that he’s on that bed and clinging to you, he can’t disappear again._ Then he scolded himself, thinking he should not think that way. Otherwise he might start to sound like Eto.

 One morning though, Furuta finally looked out the window and caught him in his bad habit. “What a noisy bird we have outside. You’re interrupting my sleep.”  
  
“I thought I was being quiet…” Seidou whined.  
  
“You’re a mouth breather.”

 Seidou had not retort through that. He just let a puff of air out through his mouth to pout.

 Furuta stared at the side of his pillow but continued to talk. “It’s creepy you know… watching Touka like that through the window.”

 “What about when I’m watching you?”

 “There’s nothing to watch.” He said plainly.  
  
“I didn’t come here to watch Touka… just… nothing. You’re creepy too ya know! Yer the one who's staying up all night starin’ at her.” As he got worked up, Seidou could feel his diction going again.  
  
“I don’t really want to sleep. I’ve heard if you stay awake long enough your brain will just shut down and you’ll die instantly, I’ve been trying but I keep drifting back and forth. Oh well.”

“Well, I don’t sleep either but it’s not for that dumb reason. It’s just when I close my eyes, my memories, and my nightmares they get all mixed up. It’s a pain in my ass. I don’t need to picture Kanou and Houji two teaming me.”

“Sounds like a naughty dream.”  
  
“Hey you, shut the fuck up.”

 Furuta did not even bother to laugh at his joke. His voice sounded so dry and cracked, Seidou wondered if he was able to laugh. Unable to laugh or even cry, that would make him a poor clown.  
  
“Why are you here, anyway?” Furuta asked. He must have figured out Seidou’s bad habit awhile ago, and only just now gotten the energy to ask. Seidou himself did not have a concrete reason why he had suddenly grown so interested in Furuta.

Just that when he saw him get dragged through the cafe, he noticed his hair was white now. White hair contrasted against that pitch black suit he always wore. Seidou thought just for a moment, just like me.  
  
Before he could answer though, Touka came through the doorway. “Don’t be rude, I brought you a present.” She unfolded it in front of him, a wheelchair. “There! Now walking around won’t be so much of a problem!”

 “I still can’t walk to get to the wheelchair…” Furuta said, flopping his head to the side. “Between laying down and sitting, laying down is more comfortable anyway. Why don’t you just get a stretcher to drag me places.”

Touka however, merely giggled. “Come on you baby, let’s get up.” She pulled on him, and then slung his arm around her shoulder, and lifted his whole body quite easily. “There, now you can go anywhere you like again.”  
  
“What if I want to go down the stairs.”

“Just call literally anybody working here, we all have super strength.”

 Seidou expected Furuta to make a joke (maybe something like 'I'll be careful not to call Roma, then'), but he simply sighed and then leaned his head against the back of the chair. _Okay_ , he muttered underneath his breath. Touka too, looked like she had been expecting a joke, or for him to resist more. In the emptiness where his response should have gone, no one made a noise in the room. Silently, Touka left him there.  
  
Furuta waited until he could no longer hear her footsteps, and then swiveled his head around to look at Takizawa in the window. “You didn’t answer my question.”

 “Your hair, it’s white just like mine…”

 “It’s a symptom of accelerated aging in ghoul hybrids, both artificial and natural.”

 “I see…” Seidou said, taking the news rather well.  
  
“You’re not bothered that you might die?”

 “Well, in a way I’m already dead so…”

 “Oh, Kanou made you into a zombie.”

“No, metaphorically dead.”

Furuta looked up finally. One of his eyes was permanently locked black and red, the other looked coal in color. “That’s a pretty half assed way to be dead then. I guess we are similiar, neither of us respect death enough to properly die.” Furuta finally tried to smile, but his face muscles moved like they had not been touched in months. The expression looked constipated more than anything else. “Since we have so much in common, let’s become friends.”  
  
“No thanks.” Seidou rejected him immediately. 

 “Since we’re friends now, I want to show you something. Would you mind pushing this old thing around?” Furuta said as he gestured, but Seidou was not sure if he was referring to himself or the wheelchair.

Seidou decided to go along with it. He had been watching Furuta all this time after all, he must have wanted to see something. Furuta asked him, and he complied, pushing him out the hall and then carrying him all the way to the basement.  
  
The room was apparently familiar to Furuta, as he saw an interrogation table and a lone chair. There was a woman handcuffed to it. Her idle but intelligent eyes seemed to be looking for any detail in order to escape.  
  
Before he stepped through the door however, Furuta put a finger over his mouth. Go and hide, he told him, something like that. So Seidou passively let the door swing closed in front of him, and simply watched once more.  
  
“It’s good to see you again, Kimi.”  
  
“Oh, it’s you. Traitor.”

 “When you allied yourself with so many different factions, it’s amazing how often you get called that.” Furuta said, once again perfectly replicating smart ass voice. However, a moment later he yawned again and slunk further forward into his chair. “That kind of stuff… it’s over with now, though.”

“Why are you here then?” She asked cautiously.

“I thought if I looked at you, I might be able to laugh. I guess I was wrong though, there’s nothing much to see here.”

“I was going to ask why you would betray Kanou when you’re the one who approached him with this plan in the first place, but, I should have known it was a stupid reason.”

“All reasons are stupid reasons if you think about it…” Furuta replied, looking down at the floor.  
  
Kimi rolled her eyes. Even chained to the chair as she was, she drew her knees up close to her chest. “That’s just reductive. Crooked men like you who see no good or no potential in the world just say there are no good reasons to do things, but there can be good reasons even to do bad things.”

 “There you go again. You’re seeing yourself as separate from me. Even though just a moment ago, you called me a traitor for betraying your little plan.”

 “That’s because you’re going to throw everything away. All the work we’ve done, all the sacrifices are going to be for nothing.”  
  
“Sacrifice, huh? I’m pretty sure, a sacrifice without somebody’s consent is just a murder.” Furuta sighed. “You’re just realizing that now, the stain on your dress won’t wash away. It’s so typical really, I thought someone who walked to Kanou on her own two feet would be different but you’re the same as all the rest.”

Kimi reached and tugged on the bangle around her wrist. She tried to fortify herself. “I had a reason. I’m not you, I wasn’t doing it for my own personal amusement that I could discard it so easily. I… I was going to make a better world.”

 “A world you could see your boyfriend in? Well, he was a part of this one, you know. Rather than walking to Kanou, if you wanted to see him again you could have just walked to see him.” Furuta sighed, again. He seemed to be full of sighs lately, as if the hot air was slowly draining out of his body. “I guess I see your point though. I killed too, in the name of love. I killed the person I loved, because of love. I tore them apart again and again. Dropping steel beams is just another form of love. Dissecting someone, that’s love too. Kaneki kills all those humans because he loves his friends. We're all the same, really. So typical."

Seidou realized in that moment, that Furuta was beginning to sound like Eto. As he watched through a crack in the door. They both looked like corpses, barely clinging onto life. They must have expected to die at some point in their own little revolutions, become stepping stones just like they made the corpses of others.  
  
Seidou was one of those corpses. He wasn’t settled on what he thought about that quite yet, just like most things nowadays he had two minds about it, one human one, and one ghoul one.

“Are you trying to make some kind of point?” Kimi said, she put on a brave face but she was shaking. She was scared of being locked in a room with that man who could barely climb out of his wheelchair.  
  
“Not really. I thought if I could shake you out of your own denial, that might make Touka happy. It doesn’t seem to be working though, maybe I should go the opposite direction. I should do the thing that would make Touka hate me. Hey, Kimi, do you still want a chance to complete that plan of yours?”  
  
Kimi’s eyes widened. “What are you implying?”

“I’m not implying anything, I’m directly stating. The plan isn’t all lost. If you’re still so devoted to it, the oggai are still here. Kaneki is still here, and his pride’s been wounded lately as well.”

“Then…”  
  
“All you have to do is feed them to Kaneki. It wouldn’t be that hard. Hmm, I could probably figure out a way to do it if I really tried.”

“Then I would have to be the one who killed them…”  
  
“So, what’s the matter with that? I thought you were willing to accept the consequences of your actions from the start.”

“Yes, but…”  
  
“It was easier when I was the one doing it right? Because I’m a bad person, and you still see yourself as a good one.” Furuta drifted further forward in his chair. “I’m so tired, you could at least say something not predictable so I don’t have to carry this conversation on my own. Hmm, you’re going to bring up Rize again, and then I’ll accept what I did to Rize and you’ll be disgusted by that. Then afterwards hmm, what was I going to say… Oh. I remember now. You had a conversation with Kanou, during the last few days of Takizawa’s torture. He asked you how you were able to stomach such things when most of his assistants could not.”  
  
Takizawa’s fingers curled around the door. His black nails began to leave claw marks from how hard he was gripping it.

“I told him that ever since my family died, I felt no attachment to this world anymore. There was nobody in the world who loved me except for Nishiki, so that’s the only reason I needed to live on.” Kimi admitted. For a moment her eyes looked romantic. Then they filled with fear, as a being of black and white kicked the doorway off of its hinges and tore through it.  
  
She felt herself lifted from the chair, with such strength that the metal from her handcuffs tore at the chain links. She looked down to see Seidou’s one red eye glaring straight through her, as she was held suspended in the air by a hand around her neck.

“You… you… you... “

Kimi did not say anything as she recognized the subject immediately.

“My head was all foggy and I couldn’t piece it together until right now, but it was you wasn’t it? You were always sitting by his side, staring at me, you… you… you…” Seidou shook her, her entire body moving like a rag doll. “You thought something good was going to come out of this? Look at me.”

Kimi pointedly looked away. “You’re just another failed subject. You never would have defeated Arima, or become king, let alone have the potential to be a dragon. Besides you would have died if we never operated on you.  
  
“Hey, did you ever read frankenstein? Wasn't franky so happy to be put sewn together of all corpse parts too, but then his doctor wouldn't even look at him. While I'm looking at you right now."  
  
“The monster in the book didn't really have a name, it was the doctor who was called Frankenstein."  
  
“You dumb bitch, is this really the situation to be correcting me in?” Seidou beared his teeth like an animal, spit came out of his mouth as he talked. He growled, and his fingers tightened around her neck. “How can you keep talking their calmly in a situation like this?”

“It’s because I know you’re not any better than me. You can claim to be a victim all you like, but the second we let go, you started tearing people apart left and right. Not because of any greater purpose, but just because you thought it would make you feel better. Even when you were just a human, you joined the CCG so you could kill ghouls. What’s the difference between one murderer and another?”

“Because I didn’t take a fucking chainsaw to a guy’s face and then just sit back and watch and write down the results as he screamed and begged to die!” Seidou raised his voice to scream right in her face. After he did though, his breaths slowed, and both of his eyes fell into focus on her. “Ever since your parents died, you haven’t felt anything right? It’s like you died with them.”

Kimi for the first time, changed her expression. Her eyes narrowed in on him. “What are you getting at?”

“Nothing. You’re right. I’m just a failure and a murderer, I was trying to be better this whole time trying to hold myself back but… that’s all I am anymore, that’s all I’ll ever be so I might as well indulge.” Seidou’s black lips curled into a smile that showed his teeth.  
  
As he threw Kimi over his shoulder he looked back to Furuta. The man still failing to sit up straight in his wheelchair. “Hey, Furuta, do you think I would make a good clown?”

“Hmm… I don’t know... A better one than me, maybe.”

 

♔

  
Takizawa threw Kimi onto the ground. At this time of year with winter fading away, all of the grass looked dead. He supposed it was appropriate, considering that this was a graveyard and all.

“What are you doing? If you wanted to kill me so bad you didn’t have to drag me out all the way here…”

Seidou jumped, and landed crouching on one of the cross shaped headstones. He rested his elbows on his knees and pointed to a shovel he stopped to get along the way. “Dig.”

“What?”

“We’re in the graveyard, that’s a shovel, I told you to dig. I thought you were supposed to be a genius who went to Kanou for more forbidden knowledge.”

It still did not quite register to Kimi. Until her eyes traveled all the way to grave stone, and she read the names on them. Nishino, Nishino, Nishino, every member of her direct family except her. All of them buried here.

“No…”

“Dig them up, and then I’m going to shove them down your throat. It’s been three years since they died huh? They’ll just be mostly bones now. That won’t be as tasty, sorry.”

“No…”

“Oh, so it’s okay to happen if it’s somebody else. It’s an acceptable sacrifice for your cause as long as it’s somebody else you’re watching doing it.”

Kimi did not say anything at all. She merely dropped the shovel she had been carrying. Siedou sighed, even in the manic state his mind had snapped into, he supposed he could still feel disappointed.  
   
Suddenly he heard the creak of a wheelchair, and smiled.  
  
“Is this where they went, Furuta?” Nishiki asked, urgently.  
  
Furuta, still slouching in his chair did not even raise his head. “Yeah… I don’t know, maybe. I’m not a blood hound. It’s just these people are really predictable.”  
  
Nishiki saw Kimi, and Seidou looming over her. He rushed forward, already drawing out his kagune. Seidou did not even give him the chance. He leaped into the air and appeared behind him.

Immediately his arm plunged through Nishiki’s back, and he raised him in the air by grabbing onto the hair at the top of his head. “I’m glad you dropped by Nishiki, that gave me some much needed motivation. Now, Kimi, if you want him to live dig your parents up and eat them. Then I’m going to eat you while you’re eating them.”

Kimi finally reached forward with shaking hands and then picked up the shovel. Weakly, she drove it into the earth. “You’re fucked up…” She muttered as she worked.  
  
“What was it that you’d probably say in response? Well, the world’s fucked up. We’re not the one’s who are fucked up, it’s the world that made us so twisted. It’s all the fault of the wrong world place, or whatever, just keep digging.” He waved his hand flippantly.  
  
It continued on for awhile like that silently. Seidou’s ranting filled the air, or the sound of Kimi’s digging, and the curses she made when her hands slipped. Or even Nishiki fruitlessly struggling against the much stronger half ghoul of his girlfriend’s creation.

Furuta in the background watched it all. Seidou remembered the words Furuta told to him. Everything passes, perhaps no truer words had ever been said in his lifetime.

Then suddenly, time seemed to stop in an instant. Just as Kimi had dug deep enough to hit the casket, he heard a voice call out his name.  
  
“Seidou?” Akira asked. Behind her, Touka had already gone to find Furuta. Seidou turned back to see the two of them standing in an otherwise empty graveyard. He saw his himself reflected in her own eyes, and he could no longer be Seidou Takizawa once more.  
  
“Akira…” Seidou immediately fell to the ground and curled himself into a ball, pulling his hood far over his face. “Don’t look…”  
  
Furuta in the background yawned. “Come on Seidou, it’s not like she hasn’t already seen it. When you strangled her, or when you killed all of her comrades except her, it’s not like she hasn't already seen the form your love takes.  
  
“Stop saying weird shit.” Touka said, leaning down next to him and pinching his cheek. Furuta neither resisted, nor reacted to Touka’s presence.

Nishiki who had been dropped on the ground, began to crawl his way to Kimi. He really was like a zombie, he reached out finally even with a hole in his chest and grabbed her by the ankle. “Kimi…”  
  
Kimi dropped the shovel she was carrying, and wrapped her arms immediately around Nishiki. Without any hesitation she began to apply pressure to his wound to stop the bleeding.  
  
Takizawa had suddenly shrunken away from the scene. Akira however, was not a child and did not think he would disappear if he simply hid from her. No, even though he kept running away she knew he had been there and would come back all this time. She leaned over him, tugging once more on his great black cloak. “What… what was that? What were you doing?”

“She…Kanou, she worked for him, and Kanou killed my parents and then forced me to eat their corpses. I didn’t want to… I wasn’t trying to… I just wanted it all to stop.”

Akira looked for the first time, and saw not a terrifying face that Seidou Takizawa wore, but rather a terrifying amount of pain he was hiding. “Why… why didn’t you tell me that?” She asked, as she leaned closer to him trying to look closer at that face of his.  
  
“I tried too...but, you, you wouldnt’ve cared. Not about my suffering, no, no, because I’m not the one, it was Seidou Takizawa who died. I’m just a ghoul. Nobody cares if a ghoul suffers. Not even me.”

Akira looked at him. She refused to look away, for the first time. Until slowly, Seidou’s own eyes were drawn out and he looked at her too, through the fog of tears and snot that were both dribbling down his face in equal amounts.

Akira only looked away for a brief moment, to ask something of Touka. “What should we do about the two of them?”

She said, referring to Nishiki and Kimi who were still in each other’s arms.  
  
Touka shrugged. “Might as well leave them. Nishiki too, he started to kill again, even minor and weak ghouls he was just interrogating just to get to Aogiri. They killed all those people to be together, so they should enjoy it.”  
  
Seidou had collapsed onto Akira crying, and hung entirely onto her shoulder. “I guess it’s my turn to carry you home then.” She said, keeping her voice even. She straightened up, supporting Seidou with her shoulder. “Fair’s fair.”

That night, she threw herself into her own bed and was about to move to the couch when she heard it. Seidou began to talk in his own sleep, _“please, please stop, it hurts… it hurts…”_ and other pleas like that whispered in quiet desperation.

All of that time she was waiting for Seidou to come back. Why not just catch up to him, she thought as she laid in bed next to him, and wrapped her arms around his shaking and sleeping self to soothe him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "..." That's Take speak for next week it's my time to shine.


	17. Still in Love with Judas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I named this chapter after a lady gaga song. Take probably wouldn't like lady gaga that much though unfortunately.

His parents did it at some point. He did not know them well, though.  
  
His grandparents then, they had done it.

Stupid people did it, ugly people do it.  
  
Who were the ones who got to do it then? The unlucky ones he guessed.

It’s not that Take Hirako liked to eavesdrop. He just defined himself as a good listener, or perhaps others assumed it of him and he had come to accept it. After all, quiet people did not necessarily have to be good listeners. They could be quiet for the sake of shutting the whole world out.

Perhaps that is what he once did, but after following a man like Kishou it was impossible not to be a good listener. That kind of man expected it, no demanded it. One needed to listen, because he did not make his true desires out to be any louder than a whisper.  
  
That is if he was feeling generous, however a thief rarely felt generous.  
  
Take Hirako wanted to bite down on his lip. Really, pondering like this was pointless. He was neither Kishou Arima, or Yoshimura Eto, no part of him enjoyed long rambling metaphors. People always asked what was behind his fox like face, but it was not like he was watching everybody secretly judging them behind lock and key in his heart (damnit that was two metaphors).  
  
Most of the time he was not thinking about anything in particular, a plain and boring truth. In this exact moment, the only reason he began to ponder (he hated that word) was because he had spent so much time standing outside of Kaneki’s door.  
  
A week passed and then some, since their king came back from a dangerous and failed attempt to kidnap Kanou. Kaneki however, quite seriously realized his error. He had nearly died and thrown away the rebellion, the hope the king represented, because of his own personal feelings.

The king was a symbol, not a person, Kaneki instructed Take. He was not Kaneki Ken, he was Nameless. He needed to distance himself so he could think more clearly about each next step. So Take merely waited at the door as the right hand, waiting for the left hand Tsukiyama Shuu to receive orders.

Of course, he decided to make this innocuous little cafe the center of it all. Perhaps because it all started here, it made it symbolic… Take did not have a good grasp of symbolism either, as poor as his grasp of metaphors. Arima and Kaneki, they both seemed to dwell on symbols a lot.  
  
Perhaps because it was a way of communication without actually communicating anything. Ah, he was overthinking things again. He needed to get to the point, which was that he did not mean to listen in.  
  
However, standing outside the door there was not much else going on as Kaneki quietly, and tirelessly worked away combing through the intelligence retrieved from Kanou, and Kimi in particular.

As the waitress passed him in the hallway she could not help but catch his eye. It was strange, most women did not.  
  
He took no interest in Nimura Furuta, either. Even as one of the rare few that knew of his place of origin. It did not evoke any feelings for him, pity, fear, or even disgust at what had happened to the boy. He might get called inhuman for that, but Take did not think so. It was perfectly human to only be concerned what was happening directly under your nose.  
  
In this one situation though, he happened to just be close enough to hear. Nimura Furuta’s hitching of his slow and pained breathing, and his empty attempt to tell a joke the moment she entered the room. Up until that point, with the exception of his breathing, he had been completely quiet. In fact, Take had difficult even hearing his breathing. He could easily have been mistaken for a corpse.  
  
Nimura Furuta reanimated himself from the dead, or at least gave a half effort for her sake alone.

  
♔

 

Touka’s affectionate sighs, had been effectively worn down into tired ones, and then empty ones.

Usually she kept the door closed, perhaps expecting something, some kind of intimacy that she would like to be kept private (his mind did not go to dirty places exactly, it was simply Take’s natural tendency to assume all people would want any small show of affection to be behind closed doors).  
  
On her lap sat a plate of food. She gingerly picked up another chunk of red meat, and held it in front of Furuta’s face. “Say, aaaaaaah.”

When Furuta did not react at all, she pushed the meat against the front of his mouth a little more forcefully. Only then did his dull looking eyes flare, and refocus on the red meat that had been shoved already halfway down his throat. His inanimate body started to contort suddenly, animated by pain itself as he coughed, and choked the meat down.  
  
Touka shielded her face by crossing her hands in front of it. Then, she brought out a handkerchief and handed it to Fuuta to cough in. He accepted it, and then coughed inside of it for one last spurt of violent hacking. When he tried to hand it back, the pure white handkerchief was soaked through with a spot of red.

“Your bedside manner is some of the worst I've ever seen…” He said finally, with a voice much weaker than he usually made such jabs with.  
  
“That’s just because you’re a terrible patient, really.” She looked at the plate of meat again and carefully picked up another wedge of it with her hands. “You should just eat so you can heal already. I don’t know why you’re not grasping this, is it because you’re a new ghoul?”

“I’ve been a ghoul since the day I was born…” Furuta muttered, as his body started to fall still again. Take wondered what prompted this sudden naked honesty. Even Kishou did not refer to himself as a ghoul, merely a half human.

“What…” Touka muttered, the rest of what she meant to say falling off of her lips as she did not quite comprehend. Take wondered how much Kaneki told her, if Kaneki was anything like Kishou, then it was probably not much.

“It’s nothing you can understand Touka, so just leave it be,” Furuta muttered half-heartedly, already giving up on his attempt at honesty. He reached out and grabbed the meat from the dish on his own, and stuffed it into his mouth choking it down slowly. Take could see it travel reluctantly down his throat. As it fell into the pit of Furuta’s stomach, his whole body seemed to whine with the effort of that one small task. “There, I’ll eat, but it won’t make a difference. Not really.”

“Why won’t it make a difference?” She asked in a hushed voice.  
  
“Should I tell her.. Ah.. probably not…” Furuta’s voice faded into mumbling. He no longer looked at Touka, as his eyes had fallen into his own lap as if drawn there by gravity and his complete inability to resist it. His head slowly sinking forward.

“Tell me please, I want to fix you!” The quiet anxiety in Touka’s voice suddenly became quite loud as she stood up from her chair. The chair fell back behind her with the suddenness of the action.

“You don’t want to…” he looked like he was about to say something, his eyes even rolled over to focus on her. However, he closed them again and gave an empty smile. “Well… nevermind.”  
  
Touka reached forward, letting the plate of meat fall too. She grabbed him by the shoulders and started to shake him. Her words unable to reach him, she tried physicality instead. “Tell me what I’m thinking like you usually do! Laugh at my desperation! Try to trick me into some revelation. All you do is spout this passive-aggressive nonsense like you’re trying to piss us all off so we’ll leave you alone to die. If that’s the case, then why the hell did we save you?”

“Why indeed?” Furuta let himself be shaken back and forth. He only resisted her for a moment to shrug his shoulders and look her directly in the eye, with those empty eyes of his. His expression could not get anymore vacuous even if you plucked the eyeballs out and simply had his sockets stare at Touka.

Take would know, he was the expert when it came to empty expressions, words without meaning, sentiments without thought.

“Ayato told me… that when he came to get you, you were screaming and crying for help, so don’t sit here taking the piss like you didn’t want to be saved.” The words came from Touka’s mouth like a low growl.

“Are you going to bite my throat out if I say the wrong thing? How cute of you…” For the first time in a while, a weak chuckle escaped the lips of the clown. It was not like he was revitalized by Touka’s spirit or anything. He just looked like a coward, giving up and taking the easy way out. “What I mean to say is, if you do fix me then you won’t be able to nurse me back to health. I won’t be clinging onto you for my happiness, anymore. So it’s in your best interest to leave me in this despondent-”

Before Furuta could even continue talking, Touka had picked another chunk of meat this time off the floor and shoved it in his mouth. This time she even crawled onto the bed with her knees, so she could push it with more force. Furuta finally seemed to struggle against her, biting down on it and biting her finger in the process. He swallowed, and Touka withdrew, suck on the marks on her finger underneath her tongue.

“What wuzzat for?” Furuta said, his mouth still halfway full before he swallowed again.

“You’re talking nonsense again, like I’m some perfect saintly maiden, or I’m that chick from the Stephen King movie who ties the author to the bed.”  
  
“Actually in the book-”  
  
“I don’t care about the book! I’m trying to say you’re wrong, stop focusing on weird metafictional details when I’m right in front of you.”

“I’m surprised you knew that word.”  
  
“I’m not stupid, stupid.”  
  
Furuta chuckled again, gaining a small amount of strength. His whole body seemed to shake and ache with the action though. “I thought you wanted me to start talking again like I knew everything. Then the second you do you start complaining, I really don’t get women at all. Not you or…”  
  
“I wanted you to start talking like you knew everything again, so I could tell you you were wrong that’s all.” Touka did not stop straddling Furuta, even though she was done trying to force him. Take wondered if he should look away, but like many times in the past he could not bring himself to. “Were you about to say Rize’s name?”

“Yeah…” Furuta said, his eyes immediately becoming downcast. As if her name alone summoned her specter to the room to hang over him.  
  
“Can you tell me about her for once… without all the dramatics I mean?” She asked again, pausing to approach with caution. The caution in her eyes was not for herself but for Furuta, as this was a topic Furuta would most likely rather die than speak honestly of.  
  
Perhaps that was the reason he had walked straight into Kanou’s kagune extraction machine in the first place. “I loved her… I helped her escape from a terrible place we were both born in. After she left though, I was punished for what I had done to help her escape. It’s the reason Arima didn’t care enough to try to save me, I was ostracized. Blood meant everything in that house, and I had sympathized with someone of completely ghoul blood… I…” Furuta reached up and covered his hands with his face. Not like he was trying to obscure it but rather to feel it, to inspect the grooves and edges, like a blind man might. “I shouldn’t tell you anymore. I don’t want you to feel sympathy for me, that’s not the proper way to respond. You might forgive me.”  
  
Touka, at that genuine sentiment, the cracking apart of Furuta’s well-calculated face, finally laughed. “You think I’m going to stop judging you? I’ve known you were a bastard for a while.” She leaned in close and touched her forehead to his. “There’s nothing that could make me stop thinking you’re a bastard, I won’t forgive you until the day you die.”  
  
“That’ll be sooner than you think…” Furuta muttered.  
  
“Nope, I want you to live and keep suffering forever. Even if I gotta beat your corpse until it comes back to life.”

“Your bedside manner, it’s not just bad, it’s the worst…” Furuta wined again, reaching up to rub the spot where Touka bonked him slightly. “I knew all of this was going to happen, but I decided to let her free anyway. I knew she might forget me too. I thought I could endure it, or at least that I would die before my feelings changed. I was terrified, of hating the only person I had ever loved.”

He templed his fingers in front of his face to steady himself. It was likely, Furuta had never put words to these feelings before, or he had too many times to count, to himself, and only himself. Sweat dripped from his body, and his hair fell over one of his eyes as if it were slicked with oil. “I couldn’t endure it though. I was… anxious, controlling, resentful, bitter. Then something strange happened. I always thought my love would turn to hate, but even as I hated Rize, I still loved her. One day I realized, both of those feelings were real. Even as I plunged steel beams into her, even as I dragged her back, my love didn’t disappear. My feelings were real. I was so happy.”

Furuta’s entire body went ice cold. “Then I thought… the only way my feelings would really disappear, is if Rize were to die. It’s because they belonged with her, it was because of Rize they were real. That’s what I thought anyway… that’s what I told myself the whole time…” Furuta finally let his head lean on Touka. “I was wrong though, once again. I was wrong because entirely separate from Rize, I began to develop real feelings for you too.”

Touka however, shook him off violently, like every part of her being was repulsed by him. She backed up until she was at the edge of the bed, and then drew her knees up to her chest. As if she did not know whether to get closer, or to run away. “That’s… that’s so twisted. I just talked big a second ago but, how am I supposed to understand that?”

Furuta merely shrugged once more. “You can’t. Someone like you who was born because somebody wanted them to be around, can’t possibly understand me.”

Even unlikeable and ugly people could do it.  
Even stupid and unlucky people could do it.  
Even scum like Furuta could fall in love.

Perhaps the reason Take felt compelled to watch was that he too, could not understand. He decided, however, to leave them alone as he did not care for the end result of their conversation.

Apparently, Touka still did not know exactly what the garden was. That detail left unexplained. He was not much better, he still kept a certain someone informed only on the vaguest of premises.  
  
If Furuta was starting to talk though, then perhaps he should as well. At least for Kishou’s sake, he wanted him to remain as a more honest person than Furuta.

 

♔

“Do you know where I can find Ui?” Take asked the one who always seemed to be watching others.

Uta sat in his chair sipping out of what appeared to be a smoothie. He had explained to Take (without Take asking) much earlier that Itori made the concoction for him by freezing blood, and then blending it with fermented blood. Just like a child, Uta sipped from the straw too loudly when he was just about done with his beverage.  
  
Take planned on taking this story to his grave, but once Kishou had done the exact same thing when they had been forced to eat takeout while staking out a mission.

“Isn’t he always at that mansion, with his sleeping beauty nowadays?” He said, before taking one loud sip. “Perhaps she’s the beast instead now and he's the belle…”  
  
Take for the first time in his life felt the urge to roll his eyes, but simply suppressed that urge. He nodded his head, the most movement his face had shown in awhile and then turned away. “Thank you.” As he walked forward he heard the sound of soft footsteps behind him. “That’s all I needed from you.” He said, to Uta who was now following him.  
  
“Oh, well. I haven’t gotten everything I needed from you… so…”  Uta said in a light voice, before continuing to follow him. They stopped right before the door, as Take reached at the white hood that hung from the back of his uniform. “If you tell me to stop following you, I’ll stop.” Uta said, and Take heard without turning his head.  
  
Take pulled the hood over his head to conceal himself, he was still on the CCG’s most wanted list after all. “I don’t care either way.” Take said honestly, before he stepped out the door.  
  
The entire walk there, including a few looping detours in case anybody had been following the two of them, Uta tried to make light, probing conversation. As usual, Take, who had gotten used to the presence of the other seemingly always at the corner of his vision, simply replied with one or two words to dismiss his question.

“Koori, what’s a kiss like?”

“Oh well, you know. It’s a gesture for two people who want to get closer to one another. Sometimes it's an expression of love, sometimes passion, sometimes desperation, it really depends. Wait, you’ve never kissed someone?”

“Things like that in the garden are unnecessary, unless you’re…”  
  
“Did you want to kiss Arima?”  
  
“Why do you have to keep bringing him up, Koori?”  
  
Take climbed the stairs and overheard a conversation that sounded like it was taking place between two teenagers. He saw a pouting Hairu, leaning against the wall and puffing her cheeks out. Ui seemed to be fretting over her as usual. She must have gotten accustomed to his presence.  
  
All of the other Oggai had left on various raids, so there only remained Hazuki Hajime who watched them with a disgusted look on his face. “If that’s what adults do to share affection, then I’ll just remain a kid forever.”

“You’ll hardly be able to be as strong as Sasaki if you stay a brat like that,” Ui said, looking back at him.  
  
“How do you know, huh? I’m way stronger than you, even though I’m just a little brat so I can probably surpass Kaneki like this too.”  
  
Take had stopped to watch for a second, and forgotten to announce his presence. It was Ui who noticed him, as well as the ghoul standing behind him. Of course, Take did not say anything, it was Uta who spoke first. “Yo!” He said, awkwardly raising one of his hands to wave.  
  
“Koori, could we talk?” Take finally asked after a long and pronounced silence.

“Oh, you want to talk? That’s a first,” Ui said, only barely making the effort to hide the bitterness in his words with a polite smile. “Hajime, I’m going to go talk in private. It’s about adult things, so you should watch Hairu in my stead.”

“Hey, how come I’m not the one watching him? I’m older you know,” Hairu started to pout again.  
  
The two of them walked together until they were outside, or the three of them rather. Ui looked at Uta as the other leaned against a far wall. He tried to gesture with his eyes for the other to leave, but Uta did not notice.  
  
“Senpai…” Ui muttered.  
  
Take shrugged. “If it were easy to make him leave I would have done it already. He’s not going to do anything, just imagine he’s a bird, or an ant.”

The two of them looked out to the yard that lay hidden behind this old mansion at the same time. Most of it was overgrowth, there was a garden once, but vines and weeds had replaced where flowers once grew. The structures remained, paint chipped, some of it rotting, a metal garden arch was almost completely rusted over by this point.  
  
Only in one small corner had the weeds been cleared away, painstakingly by hand it seemed. “Hairu did that,” Ui said, noticing that Take was looking there. “Apparently she used to pick flowers when she was younger and give them to Arima to try to impress him.”  
  
“It’s hard to imagine flowers even grew down there,” Take commented without thinking too much. The moment he started to think, his eyes snapped back to Take. “How much did she tell you?”

“Just little pieces. Lately, I’ve been telling her everything I can think of, every last detail of the outside world and in return she’ll occasionally tell me of that place. It’s fine though, I don’t want to hear it all at once. In fact, I never want to hear all of it.” While Take had looked away from him, Ui had picked up a lighter and lit a fresh cigarette. That terrible habit of his friend was rearing its ugly head again. As smoke was blown in his face, Take tried not to react to it. “To tell you the truth…” Puff. “I have this fear that the moment she tells me everything, she’ll just disappear again and I’ll be left with the burden of remembering her.”

“Elixir of life…"

“Huh?” Ui said, looking back as he did not understand what Take had said without thinking once again.

“No I just…” He looked up to the moon which cast its light illuminating an otherwise dark, and abandoned mansion. “In the story Princess Kaguya, she gave a man the elixir of life but told him in her letter of goodbye that they would never be able to see each other again, so he destroyed the elixir of life because life was too miserable without her.”

“Are you comparing my life to some tragedy? That’s a little insensitive you know… sounds like something Arima would do.” Puff, puff. Take had been around Ui long enough to know even the way he exhaled smoke was an expression of annoyance. Hairu pouted quite obviously, but someone as wound up as Ui needed to pout too.

“No, I wasn’t talking about you…” Take did not want to say anything more, his eyes drifted away and he changed the subject. “You don’t have any questions for me, then?”

The explanation he had given in the heat of the moment was rough. The dark look in his eyes back then, Take doubted if Ui even comprehended what he was talking about. It was the kind of thing that even somebody like Take who accepted most things without even blinking his eyes, needed a while to process.

“No… it’s fine. I have the feeling that, even if I asked you straightforwardly you’d still keep things from me so…it's fine we can still work together even if we don't trust each other, or confide in each other."  
  
Take noticed the same look in Ui’s eyes. It was the one Furuta wore, when he decided to give up and simply cling to Touka. Even when he knew he’d be betraying him, and even when he saw Ui fighting for his life during the clown raids Take had not wavered but somehow in this one moment outside of the battlefield, he bit the inside of his lip, the corners of his mouth downturning into a small frown. “That can’t be all… You’re not acting like yourself if you don’t have a million things to complain about.”

“Oh, you know me so well apparently.” Once again, Ui did little to hide his bitterness. Take simply took it with a stone face same as ever, pretending he had not heard it. “Fine why… why didn’t you tell me? Why was I the only one in Arima squad who was excluded.”

“Arima-san said… that you would lecture him if you caught wind of our plans.”

Ui froze. The cigarette held in his mouth fell out of his lips and onto the ground. His mouth held agape for a moment before finally, he managed to stutter something out. “A-are you joking?”

“No.” Take answered abruptly.  
  
“I see. Well that’s fine, it’s good you brought a clown here. That’s a good joke!” Ui smiled, but not in the way that Take wanted to see him smile. He looked like Furuta again, the comparison made him shiver. “Why didn’t he tell me? Even after he was dead there was no way I could have lectured him so why…”

“He probably didn’t mean it like that… you know there was a lot of things riding on this plan. If one person leaked the details then everything Arima-san had been working for his entire life would…”

“You thought I’d betray you? Arima, Hairu, and you Take, that squad was my entire life. I worked so hard to stand on my own so Arima would see me. I just wanted to be an equal so we could be friends, but…” Ui stepped on the cigarette, smothering out its last spark. “My damn old boss, he didn’t want any equals, he just wanted sycophants. What a pain in the ass boss.”  
  
“No, that’s not the reason…” Take said suddenly, once again without thinking it through.  
  
“Then what, what did Arima want? You’re the one whose closest to him, you’re the one he trusted so you should know!”  
  
“I don’t… I don’t know…” Take finally admitted, all the tension in his body releasing. All this time, he stood at the head of zero squad, and he loyally followed Kaneki and yet. All of the things Arima had told him, barely made sense within his own empty head.

“What a joke…” Ui muttered, before wandering off. Take too, did not want to look at this dead garden where nothing grew any longer and tried to leave by the backyard.  
  
He did not even notice Uta was still following him until after he heard the sound of light footsteps behind him still. He really should put a bell on that ghoul, he thought.

♔

Take looked at the blank faces on Uta’s wall. No face, Uta had been called by the CCG. He wondered truly, if he had been born a ghoul would he have picked up a similiar moniker.  
  
Uta made him several offers to make him a mask, but Take always refused them. Not any particular reason. He simply did not believe his face was noticeable enough that a mask would be necessary.

He did not like doing anything besides what he was asked and what was necessary, that was one clean way to live his life. Perhaps if Uta prodded at him long enough he would learn that he did not want to cause too much trouble to his quiet grandparents who had gone out of their way to raise him.

Whatever dramatic mystery that Uta was expecting to solve by watching him so closely, Take was all too happy to disappoint. Even though he had wandered here though, Uta had yet to say anything. He simply watched him quietly like always.  
  
Take preferred it that way.  
  
“Do you love Arima?” Uta suddenly asked him, while sitting on a unicorn decoration in the farthest edge of his shop.  
  
Take turned around slowly. His eyes were twitching but he tried to give no emotion away on his face. _Why… Why would he ask that?_ Such an obvious question and yet he was totally unprepared. _Kishou…_  the name made his chest tighten up. _I watched Touka and Furuta. The way he looked at her. The two of you have similar eyes, it's in the shape of your eyes. I guess it's because you're brothers._  
  
“Hmm, did I break you?” Uta said, jumping down from his unicorn statute that had probably been stolen off of a carnival ride to fit the whole abandoned amusement park theme Uta seemed to be going with for his decor, if he was going with one consistent theme. Take was thinking of that because he no longer wanted to follow his previous train of thought. He looked everywhere but Uta, averting his gaze from the other. Until Uta appeared to occupy the whole of his vision. He watched Take with pitch black eyes, reaching to touch the sides of his face.  
  
“No…”  
  
“No, you didn’t love him?”

“No, I’m not broken. Why would you even ask that first thing?” Take said, his eyes narrowing pulling even thinner than his usual fox-like expression.

If he was a fox though, then Uta was a cat. Somebody who liked to play with his food. Just like how he would have rather faced Ui to death on the battlefield than have that earlier uncomfortable conversation with him, Take would rather be eaten up by Uta then see what he was getting at. It seemed he did not have a choice though. “You reminded me of him. Ui whose always struggling blindly to keep his beloved Hairu alive. He does everything for her sake without question even when it causes him to suffer. Aren’t you the same? You’re doing everything for the sake of Arima Kishou, to keep him alive.”

“Arima-san is dead.” Take said, his voice dropping and becoming cold.

Uta merely tilted his head. “What does that matter? When you’re commanding zero squad the same as you were when he was alive, when you’re following his orders to the letter, doesn’t he feel more alive?”

Take overlaid the hands of Uta’s that were on his face, but he made no real effort to remove them. “No, I don’t feel…”

“Then why do you keep following his nonsensical orders? Kill Ui before you tell him the truth because he might lecture me? Put all of your faith in Kaneki, but don’t tell him the finer details of my plan. Those aren’t the orders of a wise leader.”

Take’s eyes suddenly sharpened. He wrapped his hands further around Uta’s cold feeling ones and then finally removed them. “How could you possibly know about that?”  
  
“Furuta’s more liberal with his plans than Arima. He must have trusted us good friends in the clowns more.”

“That, or he didn’t care about what happened to you when you knew that information.” Take said, snapping back at him. He didn’t want to be the one doing all the talking. Why exactly did he let Uta draw this much out of him.  
  
He was good at remaining quiet. It was easy because…  
  
“Hey, you’re empty, right?” Uta announced suddenly with a tilt of his head. Uta brought his hands to the side of his own face now that Take had shunted them away. “I said you were like Ui, but Ui is filled with all kinds of twisted emotions and sentiments now, maybe I was wrong you’re not like that you’re…”

“Like you?” Take said. It was easy to guess what the clown was getting at. _I don’t know what Kishou wants anymore, but... I understand you..._  
  
“Here’s my advice. You should just tell Ui this the next time he asks why you waited so long to tell him anything. You wanted to see what would happen.”  
  
“No, that’s not… I wanted to see the world Arima-san would make, but not like that.” A world without Kishou. That’s the world I was going to see. Even if it was a better world then what would it look like without him? Wouldn’t it just be the same as this one? Take felt a pang in his chest. If there was medicine to fix this ache, he would have thrown it away regardless.  
  
“It hurts doesn’t it?” Uta said, reading the pained look on his face. “It’s easier not to talk when you’re like this. Just fade into the background. I’m sure you’ll get to see something really fun that way.”  
  
“Is that what you’re doing with me?”  
  
“Maybe… I want to see which way you’ll flip, loving or hating Arima. It’ll be fun. Hey, how much did he tell you anyway.”

Take did not feel particularly emotionally compromised. In fact, it was just as Uta said, he had no strong feelings at all. Yet, at that simple prompt the details that Arima had told him to keep locked tight in his chest started to spill from his lips.  
  
The garden, the plan of the one-eyed king, the torrent that was destined to come afterwards. Uta watched them all without changing his expression once. _Ah, so that’s what it feels like._ Take thought as he wished Uta would show the smallest amount of emotion.

“Why’d you tell me all of that so quickly, when you couldn’t even bring yourself to do so with Ui when you’re on the same side?” Uta asked, once he had finished.

“It’s because you’re a terrible person. If you judge me, I won’t think too much about it.”

“Did you want to see how the world would change? How people would change? How Kaneki would change? Just like me?” Uta asked once more, his curiosity renewed by all the information he had just learned. Another catlike quality of his, he seemed to move in and out of Take’s personal space at his own whimsy.

“I don’t know…” Take said in response, his honest answer. No, not honest, it was simply an empty answer.  
  
“Did you want to feel less empty? When you saw how much Ui changed from not knowing, did it make you tighten up inside?”

“No, that’s not it… but I don’t know why…” Take said again. He was barely doing a good job at making his case at this point. Well, like he said it was fine if the clown in front of him did not really understand him. He had lived his entire life simply letting others slide off of him without making any contact. They could all look away for how much he cared.  
  
_No, there was one person I wanted to look at me._  
  
“I don’t know why Arima-san makes me feel that way, why he’s the only one who does it. He wasn’t kind, he was cold, he asked far too much, he didn’t give me anything at all. Yet, when I think about him… it hurts, my chest is so tight, it feels like water is sloshing about inside of there, dark, shadowy waters…” Take finally after standing still the whole time, stumbled a step forward and wrapped his arm around his chest.

“There wasn’t too many good things about him, he was almost completely inhuman. It’s like he didn’t care about my feelings at all. I might have just been a servant to him, I might have hated him for it… yeah, I think so.”  Just as easily as the details to Kishou’s plan, his own feelings began to spill forth. Take had simply not thought about these things before. The moment he started though, he could no longer stop himself. He spoke through his thoughts, leaving no barrier at all. “Kishou he, he picked me, he trusted me, he was the first person to see anything in me at all. I loved him. Kishou… I loved Kishou.”  
  
Even though he had just said he hated him a moment ago, the words rolled off his tongue just as easily. _Kishou. He’s dead. I always knew he would die. Kishou. I want to see him. I want to see him, terribly._ __  
  
“I’m sorry I can’t answer your question, whether I loved or hated him. Either way, when I was around him, I felt more human. The two of us, we were human together.” _Kishou told me, everything would be fine if I put my faith in Kaneki. The king is nameless but, my king is named Kishou. It's not the same._

“Do you think he loved you back?” Uta gave him one final probing question. Take felt completely naked at this point. If he was capable of blushing his face would turn red.  
  
He reached up for his hood, and pulled it back over his head. “I don’t know…” He mumbled again.

Uta however, did not press him. It was the first time he had ever done anything kind that Take had witnessed. He simply walked forward to stare at the rows of many masks that lined the walls of his shop. Idly, perhaps without even meaning for Take to hear he wondered aloud. “Do you think, that anybody born in that garden could love normally? That anybody empty could do so as well, or would they be too tempted to simply try filling themselves up and hoarding that emotion?”

“I don’t know…” Take said again, feeling like this was his catchphrase at this point. Idly though, ever so idly he started to become curious about Uta. “I know why I’m this way but, if we’re the same then why are you like this?”

Uta shrugged. “I must have been like this, since the day I was born.”  
  
Take had walked up to Uta’s side to see if the side profile of his face would give away anything. Frustratingly though, it was the same blank expression. _I want to see you change_ , Take thought as he leaned in. “It’s not wrong to try to love someone at least, even if it’s doomed to failure.”  
  
“Are you talking about, Arima?” Uta asked, not quite getting why Take was so close.  
  
“No.” Take said succinctly, leaning in until their faces almost touched. And then he leaned in more.  
  
Uta still did not get it, until their lips touched. When it happened, he did not break away. His eyes were puzzled, but he gave up and just accepted it.  
  
It was a long and empty kiss, where neither of them particularly tried anything to incite the other. In fact it could almost be mistaken for a chaste peck, the kind of first kiss that two innocent people would have.  
  
After a time so long that Take was beginning to feel light headed from forgetting to breathe in properly, Uta finally pulled away. In the moments after the kiss, he backed away from him and in dead silence, he walked to the shop door.  
  
“Where are you going?” Take called out after him.

“Am I the one you want to talk to?”  
  
“No… I want to talk to Ui again.”  
  
Uta simply nodded, though that did not answer where he was going. He reached out and pulled the door open, and inside stumbled a frantic looking Tsukiyama Shuu. For a man who cared so much about the clothes he was wearing, his suit had been buttoned up in the wrong way, and his undershirt had been untucked and was hanging lopsidedly over his pants. His tie was nowhere to be found, and the usually neat combed part in his hair fell in tatters over his face covering partially his eyes.  
  
“Mon dieu! My good friend Souta, he’s gone missing again!”  
  
“Since when were the two of you friends?” Take asked drily, not quite grasping the urgency of the situation.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next week is the moon boys what good moon boys.


	18. Full Moon Sway

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chie Hori does not particularly enjoy having a certain moon orbit around her, but sometimes it's not so bad.

Chie Hori could feel her life flashing before her eyes.

She had experienced this sensation once before when Tsukiyama on a whim had picked her up by the collar and thrown her through a window. Perhaps that was why this time she only saw a brief flash of events that resumed from the point of the last time she had seen her life flashing, like some kind of save point.

She grew up by Tsukiyama’s side, met one of his house servants Kanae, failed to get a reputable job and become a productive member of society and instead chose to become an information broker. Despite branding Tsukiyama as an obsessive pervert, she became somewhat like him, stalking crime scenes and taking photos.

She had good grades when she tried, she was a scholarship student in a prestigious school who went there out of her own effort. She could have turned into somebody who belonged with the rest of society.

All of it went astray when she met that man. She was flashing back to her post-Tsukiyama life. As if the Chie Hori who existed the days before she met Tsukiyama had never truly lived. She had parents, she even maintained some casual relationships but ever since running to that Cafe in the dead of the night to beg for help she had made no attempt to contact any of them.

If they got mad at her for that, Chie would just say it was all this idiot’s fault. Yes, even the reasons her emotions had become so inflamed right now had entirely to do with him. Chie Hori felt death approaching her, but it was not because she lived in an apartment right now with two ghouls when she herself was a tiny human with no offensive capabilities who must have looked like an appetizer on legs to them.

No, the reason had entirely to do with the idiot. It was his fault again once more. He said whatever he pleased, and this morning when Chie Hori had finally gotten her camera repaired after dropping it he took her aside and put a hand over her shoulder, looking her right in the eyes.

“Chie Hori, I’m not in love with you. I’m in love with Kaneki Ken.”

Her first response simple, her usual dry rebuttal to his sudden emotional swings. “Is there a reason you felt the need to state the obvious, or did you just finally realize it yourself? In that case, congratulations, you’ve finally caught up with the rest of the world.”  
  
However, then Shuu Tsukiyama had said it, while looking right into her eyes with his stupidly vast looking violet ones. “It’s because you’re in love with me, and I wanted to let you down gently.”  
  
Chie Hori dropped her camera once again.

“I don’t love you.”

♔

 

Ever since that day, Chie Hori’s life had been hell.

Breakfast with the Tsukiyamas. It sounded like the title to some kind of sitcom, but this had become the daily routine in Chie’s life. The first time she ever met Tsukiyama the younger, she had calmly stared him down while he tore off the meat of a runner’s calf and bite down hard into the gastrocnemiusm and soleus muscles through the lens of her camera.

Life was much easier to deal with then when glancing through the lens of a camera, she passively observed. It was too bad her camera was being repaired a second time now.

Human meat being devoured in front of her did not phase her at all. Especially in the eccentric ways that the two Tsukiyamas seemed to consume it. Sometimes it was the faces, sometimes they were baked into jello with flecks of human meat still apparent inside of them. Tsukiyama had even once tried to bake a human pancake though Chie did not know how that was possible.

It occurred to Chie that if the younger Tsukiyama had not been born a ghoul than perhaps he would have just been one of those people who constantly takes pictures of their food and shares it on instragram with really long and pretentious descriptions. Oh, he would have been even more annoying in that case, perhaps it was for the best that he was born a man eating ghoul.

Her thoughts wandered like this because during breakfast, despite the close relationship between father and son, and both of them having a talkative nature to a fault, they ate in an eerie silence. When Chie saw them staring at one another, she occasionally wondered if they were talking telepathically and excluding her from the conversation.

The much more likely reason was that both father and son were extremely food obsessed, and liked to relish their meals with every part of their attention. Even though it was humans they were delighting in the taste of Chie could not fault them too much. Everybody needs a hobby after all. She was the kind of person who would take a picture of a beautiful woman, and then that same beautiful woman’s corpse rotting and feel no difference in the quality of the pictures.

Chie did not know that the silent meals up until this point were a blessing, because today while she idly mixed the oatmeal that she had made herself (it turned out the two gourmet ghouls were not excellent chefs when it came to human food) to try and improve its flavor, and Mirumo idly checked the stocks in the newspaper, Tsukiyama spoke up.

“Chie, I had a question for you!” He announced, suddenly.

“Then… ask it?” Chie said not even looking up from the oatmeal she was watching slowly drip out of her spoon.  
  
“What exactly is it about me that you love?” Tsukiyama asked without any prompt.  
  
Chie dropped her spoon in her oatmeal. Besides that momentary unconscious reaction, she immediately replied without losing her cool or changing her face. “Nothing. There’s nothing lovable about you.”

“I don’t understand, then. If there’s nothing lovable about me, then why are you in love with me?” Tsukiyama asked, his eyes wide and empty almost like a child’s. For a moment looking into his eyes, she could almost understand why Tsukiyama was so hungry all of the time.

Then she broke away from him and shook her head. “I’m not in love with you. You’re just like a child, you believe everything you’re told immediately without figuring it out for yourself.”

Tsukiyama took pause. His brow furrowed in thought. Chie hoped he would not hurt himself like that. “No, but I… I know I missed the obvious, both Karren and now you. That’s why I want to know. What is it about me that just makes me so irresistible?”

“Phrase that question in a less egotistical way,” she commanded quickly.  
  
“What is it about me that makes people fall so in love with me that they’d sacrifice anything to be with me, even their own lives? Am I the most beautiful, most beloved treasure on the earth?”

“Somehow you made it even more egotistical.” Chie sighed. “Fine then, close your eyes and I’ll show you, exactly what I want to do to you when I see your face.”

Tsukiyama paused once again. With a strange amount of innocence, he slowly closed his eyes, letting them flutter shut. He looked as if he had absolutely no idea what to expect, but his lips twitched.

The next moment, Chie threw her bowl at Shuu. His entire face became covered in oatmeal, and the bowl slowly slid down the sticky mess. Shuu opened his eyes and immediately smelled something foul. He looked one moment away from going into shock. Chie wished she could take a picture of this moment. As she could not though, there was no point in staying, so she simply walked out of the room.

A moment later Mirumo put down his newspaper. “I think you’re lovable, son. You’re athletic, musically talented, creative and spontaneous. You’re a man of culture and class.” These same compliments Mirumo repeated a thousand times, but he seemed to mean them every time.

“Thank you father,” Shuu said, dabbing his face with an expensive looking handkerchief.

 

♔

  
As all three of them were on the CCG’s most wanted list, the two Tsukiyamas for surviving their extermination, and Chie for hacking their servers several times then being reported as missing by her family, traveling to and from the apartment required a great deal of caution. As Chie was small, and her appearance entirely unremarkable, a face with rounded cheeks and plain brown hair styled in a bob that barely went past her ears, she found it easier than most to slip under the radars of others. When she was recognized though, she was always good at darting to make a quick escape, and fitting into small openings that others could not.

Perhaps her nickname of little mouse was not so bad after all. Of course, Tsukiyama could call her whatever he wanted, she would not care any more or less.

When Chie left the apartment building to pick up her repaired camera though, her trip was made much more difficult by a large, flamboyant, purple man who insisted on following her wearing the most colorfully obnoxious suit possible.

“Take that off.” Chie had ordered him, the moment she lost the argument on whether or not Tsukiyama could come with her. Apparently, he had something important to discuss.  
  
Tsukiyama took that the wrong way. “Chie, I already told you, I can’t do that kind of thing with you if I don’t love you. Besides, my father is still home, it would be scandalous.”

From the other room, Mirumo called out, “I don’t want to interrupt the summer of love of your youth Shuu, as long as you don’t turn into a playboy like your grandfather then I’ll approve.”

Chie wondered for a brief moment why she had to go out of her way to try to save both Tsukiyamas. “I meant dress more appropriately if you want to follow me around, I’m going to go to a public area to pick up this camera.”  
  
Tsukiyama nodded, and returned a moment later wearing a black turtleneck and the world’s tightest pair of white pants. He changed fast, Chie deduced it was a habit that had been borne from wearing at least three different outfits in a single day, every day.

However, even when they had begun to walk without attracting any attention besides the small novelty that was their height difference when walking side by side, Shuu had to open his mouth again.  
  
“Do you want to hold my hand while we walk?”

“Why would I want that? I’d look like a primary school student.”

“Well doesn’t it feel nice to hold the hand of the man you love?”

Chie immediately shoved her hands in her pockets as a wordless rejection. She tried to keep on walking, but every odd step or so she found herself being pestered with another unwarranted question from Tsukiyama.  
  
“Hey, what exactly is it that you love about me? You never told me over breakfast. Is it my personality?”

“What’s there to love about somebody who is always screaming and inserting himself into things without asking and therefore needs to be babysat like a child?”

Tsukiyama paused for a moment. Of course, he was so secure in himself, such an insult did not even register to him. Rather he seemed to be processing it and trying to comprehend what Chie had said in line with his own image of himself, still trying to figure out the mystery of what made him so loveable.

“Aha! Is it my money? I’m always buying extremely expensive sweets for you, and I’m the one who's paying to repair that camera.”

Chie sighed, continuing to walk and look forward. “If that was the case, don’t you think I would have bailed on you the moment your money ran out?”

“That’s right. I never should have accused you of being so shallow a person. Your love for me is clearly as deep as the ocean.” 

“No, that’s not what I was trying to say…” She said in an even voice. The rest of the walk was spent like that, Chie being pestered with questions as Tsukiyama listed off what he thought were his good and lovable qualities.

On the way back home at least, Chie was too busy adjusting her repaired camera to pay attention to it.

 

♔

 

 _“Seething fear, a rising sense of despair, the world losing it’s color, your heart frozen…”_ Those were the words Tsukiyama said to her, to try to describe her emotional state as he held her by the neck out of a shattered window.  
  
Slowly, slowly, she felt his grip slacken. He removed one finger, and then the next. It was the kind of situation where a human being would either violently fight back in order to live, or accept their fate with a fatal resignation. As Tsukiyama’s grip loosened, and conversely the noose around her neck tightened, Chie did not find herself doing either.  
  
It’s not like she was unafraid of death. She did not consider herself an especially brave person, or even a reckless one. People in school often whispered how she was a weirdo who went wherever she wanted and followed her own way of thinking, but Chie had never thought of herself that way. In her perspective, she was completely normal. So, in a way, everything Tsukiyama had said about her emotional state was completely true.  
  
Of course she was afraid to die. Who wouldn’t be? There were too many interesting things in the world to leave it behind. What Chie did not understand in that moment was why exactly Tsukiyama had to go to such desperate lengths to see whether or not she was afraid of dying.  
  
She thought she was perfectly normal. The fact that she did not want to die should have been obvious, since she was just like everybody else and the vast majority of people did not want to die.

 _Seething fear, a rising sense of despair, the world losing it’s color, your heart frozen…_ those were the words Tsukiyama had used to describe her emotions at the time. Coincidentally, that was what Chie felt right now.

“I have one last thought, Chie. Could it be you’re just attracted to me for my body?” He had asked her out of nowhere. The question itself was annoying on its own, but Tsukiyama had walked up to her fresh out of the shower dripping wet to ask this with the world’s smallest towel clinging around his waist and censoring him.

In anime when this kind of scenario happened, the female love interest would turn red from head to toe and then deny her attraction to him despite her obvious flustering, usually by calling him some kind of idiot.

There was nothing hot about Chie’s face. She remained as cold as ever. She did not even avert her gaze. She looked forward at what was about eye level with her right now unflinching. Yet still, on the inside, more than the time she was dangling out of a window Chie suddenly feared for her life.

However, despite her insides shaking her voice was as calm and clear as ever. “I’m going to report you for sexual harassment.”

“What? I’m not the one who's attracted to you, you’re attracted to me.”

“You know they call people who are convinced somebody else is in love with them without their input stalkers. Actually, that explains a lot of your behavior.” Chie shrugged, and then picked up her camera sliding it into a bag hanging loosely around your shoulder. “Anyway, I’m going for a walk.”

Tsukiyama who had been standing in front of her, grabbed her shoulder to make her stop just as she was turning away. Of course with the extreme difference in their heights, and also the extreme differences in their strength, it was no wonder that suddenly Chie found her feet ripped out from under her, and Shuu Tsukiyama falling on top of her.

She felt her head hit the ground, then opened her eyes once more. Shuu had caught himself just in time to stop himself from falling on top of her, which was good because his large body might have crushed her. Instead, he was over her, with both of his hands on either side of her. Chie saw something fluttering off behind them.

Oh, it was Tsukiyama’s towel. The one that was only clinging around his waist in the first place because god had decided to be merciful that day. Of course mercy changed to cruelty quickly, and Chie watched as that towel landed on the ground behind them. Then slowly, her eyes trailed to the area where his towel had been covering a moment ago.

“Your hair down there… it’s purple. How is it purple?” She said finally, voice coming out like she was in a trance.

Tsukiyama did not answer her question. Instead, he suddenly broke down into laughter, crumpling forward and coming close to her. While that made her slightly uncomfortable, Chie did not say anything at all. “This is ridiculous, non, I’m the ridiculous one. Ridicolo!”

“Oh no, he’s slowly becoming self aware.” Chie remarked drily.  
  
“You really don’t like me do you? All this time, I’ve been worrying myself half to death and annoying you with my own assumptions.”

Chie Hori sighed. “You always do this. If you want to know what your problem is, it’s not that you’re too loveable. It’s that you insert yourself into things, and just assume things of people without asking how they feel.”

Tsukiyama went silent. His eyebrows knitted and his hair fell messily in front of his face, still wet from the shower. Right then, his face became so beautiful that Chie immediately forgot about everything, reached into her bag, let the camera shutter click even while she did nothing but lie there underneath him.

Tsukiyama opened his mouth to say something, but the both of them were interrupted by a voice from behind. “Oh, sorry. Do you two need something before I go? I can get you some condoms, that is unless you wanted to give me a grandchild sooner rather than later.”  
  
It was at that point Chie who had been boiling over slowly, finally lost it. “Silence! Father and son pervert duo! Get off me this instant!”  
  
Tsukiyama had never even seen her raise her voice before, so those punctuated commands, he followed instantly. He blindly grabbed for his towel, and then bowed his head in apology. By the time he looked up though, Chie Hori was already gone.

  
♔

 

Of course she did not stray far. A mouse relied on others to eat, so even if humans chased them away they would just hide in their holes and return again to steal some more crumbs. Chie felt the same, her life on the run with two fugitive ghouls was much more interesting than her life on the run alone so she had no plans to leave. 

Tsukiyama was such an oblivious person, though, that she could simply follow him for a few hours without alerting him to her existence. The same way she had followed him the first night they met.  
  
It was not something she planned beforehand, but entirely on a whim. Tsukiyama sure is a weirdo, she thought that day when he walked past her in the hallway and nearly stepped on her, then walked by as if he had not even seen her. Not only was he a weirdo, he was one that would be easy to exploit considering how little he noticed her presence.  
  
The moment he left school he did not take one of his father’s drivers as usual but instead chose to walk. Chie waited a few minutes and then walked after him, making sure to keep her footsteps light. He seemed to walk in idle and lazy circles all day long, as if he was antsy and waiting for something.

Then finally he made his way to the park. Tsukiyama who at least always looked composed and regal from behind suddenly shifted, his whole body seemed to twist and crack like he was possessed by something. He knelt down on all fours and became more feral as he waited. Chie herself a few steps behind, making sure to silence her breathing and not move a single muscle in her body except for the one on her index finger which twitched on the switch for her camera in anticipation.

Then she heard in the distance the light pitter patter of feet. It might have been mistaken for rain. Well, she saw rain anyway, but the red kind that filled her vision as Tsukiyama suddenly lunged forward and tore his teeth straight into the man’s calves. Chie had never assumed she would see that much blood in her life. She thought blood only sprayed like that when it was being exaggerated for the sake of a special effects rig in a movie.  
  
Despite the fact that she had witnessed Tsukiyama do this thing in front of her though, her opinion of him changed very little. She did not expect that, but she accepted it easily. It was something like _Ah I see, Tsukiyama is a ghoul now. That doesn’t change anything though, he’s still a weirdo. He’s probably a weirdo among ghouls too._ If he was a human or a ghoul she did not really care that much. Perhaps that's why it had been so easy, she was observing it through the lens of a camera.  
  
Now she watched Tsukiyama from one street away, zooming in with the lens of her camera. He traveled into the Re Cafe, and Chie realized she would probably have to climb up one story and glance through one of the windows if she wanted to see what would happen next. She already knew where he was going, because Tsukiyama remained as predictable to her as always.  
  
To her, he was a constant thing that both waned and waxed just like the moon. Sometimes Chie wondered why people considered the moon to be such a mysterious object. After all it moved in predictable cycles that humanity had figured out long ago. 

♔

  
Tsukiyama sat at the foot of Furuta’s bed. He was dressed much more humbly than normal, in a white collared dress shirt and black slacks. The shirt was a bit big for him, and hung more loosely off of him that it would have if it had been tailored to fit. 

The two sat in silence for awhile. It was Furuta Nimura who finally spoke up. “Did you come to laugh at me?” He asked in a morbid tone of voice.  
  
“Non, non, no.” Tsukiyama Shuu shook his head, as if the notion itself was ridiculous.

“Hah, I would have preferred that,” Furuta said. His voice still sounding like death, dry, cracked and listless. Chie always tried to keep updated on others, and she knew that Touka used to attend to him every day, but this morning she had only slid a meal to him through the door like he was some kind of cockroach locked away in that room. “I’ve run dry of people’s pity you see, it’s just poison to me now.”  
  
Chie found herself regretting that she was not there in person, because she wanted to call him overdramatic to his face. Tsukiyama however, seemed to be on the exact wavelength for that sort of drama. “I didn’t come here to give you anything. I just wanted to take something from you.” 

“That’s an even worse option, for I have nothing left to give.”

Chie wondered what play the two of them were reciting lines from right now. However, her internal monologue of snarking took a backseat for a moment as she looked closely through the lens of her camera at Furuta’s features for the first time. Bedridden, ghostly pale, he looked exactly like Tsukiyama did in those three years he did nothing interesting at all.   
  
For Tsukiyama, this must have been like looking at a ghost of his past. However rather than shame or hatred, Tsukiyama had a certain gentleness in his gaze. Perhaps one that Furuta was entirely undeserving of. “Even if you have nothing, there’s still something you have. You can look at others and read them as easily as if they were books. You always seem to know what they’re thinking. Even if you have nothing, you have other people to look towards still.” 

Furuta chuckled in a dry way, that made his body wince when he got too loud. “That’s a weird kind of optimism you have there, MM-san.”

“I’m not trying to find some good in you. In fact, I’m jealous that somebody like you of all people can understand other people so easily.” His head shook with his unease.

Furuta’s eyes sharpened for a moment. “Somebody like you, a person who is his father’s only son, someone who was born to be loved and inherit everything couldn’t possibly be jealous of me.”

Shuu froze and looked at him. “Someone like you who only wants to despise people, understands them much better than someone like me who wants to love them.”

“Oh, I see,” Furuta noted emptily. “Then you see me as a despicable existence.”

“No, I believe you’re a sensitive soul who's always thinking of others.”

That was enough to break Furuta from his melancholy from sheer confusion alone. He blinked, and then his eyes twitched in an uneven way. He looked especially tired with his eyelids darkened, and the bags under both eyes in contrast to his pale skin. He finally stopped twitching and just shook his head. “You don’t really need me to understand people, Mm-san. You just need to stop being in your own little world.”

“I’m not just saying that, I really believe it to be true!” Tsukiyama said, suddenly raising his voice. “The way you’re always looking at others, you remind me of Kaneki.”

“What’s the difference to you then?” Furuta asked. Even his hair had become dyed a stark white like Kaneki’s due to what he had been through in the past few weeks.  
  
“I’ve forgiven Kaneki already for everything. Even when you apologize though, I’ll never forgive you. I’ll hate you forever for what you did to Matsumae.”

“I see…I’m sorry.” He muttered one more time, weakly. However, being told he was not forgiven seemed to empower Furuta more than forgiveness ever did. He straightened up and looked at Shuu. “Can I ask you for a favor?” 

♔

Furuta looked like he regretted asking Tsukiyama of all people for that favor. As Shuu had decided to carry him to the destination he asked, bridal style.

When they finally arrived to the HYSY art mask studio, Furuta was still being held like a lofty princess. When he fidgeted, instead of being let down, Tsukiyama only tightened his grip.

“What a cute man you’ve brought before us. I’m proud of you.” Nico was the first to comment. He held a hand around his chin to accentuate the shape of his face.

Itori laughed behind him. “You should be careful. Nico might try to steal him from you. That guy is a man eater, literally.”

Uta was the only one sitting down, though he sat in a weird way on one of the stools. He looked more like he was perched than sitting. He spun around slowly to face Furuta, his face looking dry. “Is there a reason you called the three of us here?”

“I thought you agreed to be at my beck and call,” Furuta said, trying to look confident even though he was completely at the mercy of the man carrying him.  
  
“I suppose we did, but… you know…” Uta’s voice trailed off.  
  
Itori answered for him. “We all thought you were dead when you ran off to Kanou.”

“Actually it’s a little disappointing that you survived. I thought dying exactly the same way Rize did would have been a much more beautiful death for you.”

“Rize’s not…” Furuta muttered, unable to continue the conversation.  
  
It was Tsukiyama who spoke up. He was trying to whisper to Furuta but Tsukiyama was almost incapable of whispering. “Why do these three keep talking in turns of three? Do they think they’re the witches from Macbeth.”

Of course somebody as obsessed with foreign language as Tsukiyama would reference a Shakespeare play at this moment. Of all four of the clowns, Furuta was wearing a distinctly different mask than them. His was the mask of tragedy, while they still viewed themselves as comedians.  
  
“I wanted to keep my word. I think it’s just about the end, so I wanted you three to see me just like I’d promised.”

“What about Roma?” Uta asked. Now that she thought about it, Roma must be working a shift entirely alone now at the cafe. Chie hoped that place, :re, would not burn down.  
  
“I don’t like her so, I don’t really want her to see me like this.”

“Well, if it’ll annoy Roma then I suppose I can revel in your end without my little sister,” Itori said.

(Elsewhere, Roma sneezed and dropped a plate onto the floor smashing it.)

At that moment, Tsukiyama finally let go of Furuta causing him to fall on the floor. Even if he wanted to though, he did not break into pieces. People were made of sturdier stuff, much to his chagrin.  
  
He tried to straighten himself and stand up, but it was a wasted effort. Finally, it was Uta who jumped off of his seat and went to the back of the shop to rummage around for a second. He returned with a cane and offered it to Furuta.  
  
Furuta finally was able to stand on his own, putting most of the weight on the cane. “Th-...” He tried to sound grateful, but his mouth would not form the words.  
  
“You don’t have to thank me. I stole it from an old person that I ate. It’s hardly a good deed.”

“I haven’t eaten old man in so long,” Shuu commented. “Lately it’s all been mobster meat, they’re so greasy.”

 When he was finally standing he looked to all three of them. “Well, take a good look. This is the end.”

Itori sighed. She walked up and pinched Furuta on both of his cheeks, feeling nothing at all about invading the personal space of such a fragile looking person. “It’s kind of lame, like when your favorite manga series ends on a cliffhanger, you know.”

“I guess…” He looked past Itori and to Uta. “Are you three going to disappear now?”

Itori slapped his cheek. “Why would we do that? We’ve still got Kanekicchi to watch until the end.”  She backed off finally, slinking away like a snake. “I already have the outfit picked I wanna wear in the chairman’s office ya know? I shouldn’t let a beautiful dress like that go to waste.”  
  
“Well, I guess if those two are going then I’ll go as well.” Uta sighed, as he jumped up and landed in a crouch to sit back on his stool again. “You should be careful now, now that you’re on your own. The place you’re going is going to be much harder than your previous life.” Unlike the other two who were obsessed with the spectacle, Uta gave much more even-tempered advice.

“What do you mean? Isn’t he just going to die in some alleyway now that he was saved from his perfect death?” Nico asked.  
  
“Aren’t we going to kill him for walking away on us?” Itori asked, also. The edge hidden behind her question caused Furuta to wince as he stood there clutching his cane. 

“No, the place he’s going is back to that cafe, right?” Uta said, looking at Furuta with his pitch black eyes.  
  
Furuta said nothing, he merely nodded his head.  
  
“Well, at least you’ll still have Roma.” Uta said. Those words caused Furuta to wince even more. 

“It’s still disappointing. Ugh, this is why I should stop following serial media.” Itori in annoyance shoved her hand near her mouth and bit on to well-manicured nails. “Don’t suddenly act like you’ve changed just because you’ve met some girl, Souta. Say all you want about how you want to be a good person for her, you’re just going to put her on a pedestal the exact same way you did with Rize.”

Furuta did not react to the disappointment. He merely accepted it, like he was a wind sock with a hole at the bottom. It flowed all the way through him. “You’re disappointed? Well, that’s your fault for believing in a failure from birth like me to begin with.”  
  
Tsukiyama who had been silent the whole conversation finally spoke up. “Enough! Don’t look down on Furuta, at least he’s trying! If you three can’t even be normal people, if all you can do is look on from the sides, then what right do you have to look down on normal people? Why are you hating on others for trying something you’re not capable of! If you’re his friends you should be happy for him!”

Furuta sighed. “Leave it alone, MM-san.”

“I can’t leave it alone! You’re lying right now, when you said your birth was a failure! No it wasn’t!”

The three clowns watched him with eerie eyes, but before they could get much of a show Tsukiyama suddenly tore through the white shirt at his shoulder. He was so incensed, that electricity arced from where his kagune was forming. It came into being searing hot, a sword that wrapped all the way around his shoulder and then ended in a bladed prong.

“Leave us alone. I’ll kill all three of you if you interrupt what I have to say next.”

Uta did not react to the threat at all. He merely pointed at the door. “You’re inside my mask shop you know, you can just leave.”

Shuu dissipated his kagune in a blood mist, and picked Furuta up bridal style once more. Furuta did not quite understand what was going on, but his body was still too weak at this point to resist.

When they had finally got some blocks away, Furuta nearly spilled out of his arms. “You ruined my attempt to look cool while saying goodbye to them.” He whined, like a child would.

“I needed to be clearer. What I said earlier about how I wouldn’t forgive you for Matsumae. Secretly though, I’m happy that I’m allowed to be mad at you. I could never be angry at Kaneki.”  
  
“Why not?” Furuta asked, curious.  
  
“He wouldn’t be able to handle it.”

Tsukiyama however, did not let his shoulders slump like he did normally when he tragically thought of Kaneki. He reached forward and put his two hands on Furuta’s slim and weak looking shoulders. As if the broad-shouldered and sturdy looking Tsukiyama was trying to lend his strength. “Listen, you don’t need to be forgiven by me. Even if it’s only one person, someone will definitely understand you. Someone will surely love you. Even if you are hurt due to loneliness, someone will surely embrace you.”

“Touka won’t anymore…” Furuta muttered, having given up completely.

“Someone will!” Tsukiyama said a second time. Then he did an utterly foolish thing, and threw his arms around Furuta. He hugged him enough to crush the man’s frail body that looked like glass.  
  
Furuta’s hands hung there limply. He looked up at the sky wanting to look anywhere else, and saw that the dark of the clouds in the sky had mingled with the light of the sun, leaving behind a muddled haze.

He gazed at the tension in the sky and muttered under his breath. “I wish it would just rain already.” His eyes flickered, and he finally saw the spot in the alleyway in which Chie had been hiding, watching the two of them.  
  
“Hello there, little mouse. Are you enjoying the show?”  
  
The moment she came out of the shadows, she snapped a picture of the two of them hugging. Tsukiyama had posed the question to her hundreds of times over the past few days, and if she had to say so, she liked his awkward straightforwardness like this. Perhaps because she was someone who could not display her emotions even under the most strenuous of circumstances, she made someone who let his emotions run wild her other half.

Her other… no, she couldn’t… she didn’t possibly. _This is why I like Tsukiyama, after all._  
  
“Chie! I’m glad you’re here, can we go back to being friends now? I’m sorry if my clumsiness made things awkward.”  
  
Chie snapped her attention forward. “Whoever said we were friends.”

“Chie! Chie wait, we’re not friends? That can’t be. Wait, now that I think about it, you never use my first name even when we’re alone though we’ve known each other all this time.”  
  
Chie smiled for a moment. “Well, I guess if I had to describe it. You’re kind of like a big slobbering dog that I hold the leash for, and apologize to everyone because you keep running around doing whatever you want.”

Tsukiyama hung his head. “You could at least call me Shuu if you’re my owner.”

“Sh-shhh….” Chie tried, but found herself completely unable to. The words were stuck in her mouth.

Before either of them could continue the conversation though, they suddenly looked back at an empty space between them.  
  
“Where did Furuta go?”  
“Where did Furuta go?”  
  
The two friends said in perfect unison.

 

♔

 

Both of them had ended up looking around for a full day. After losing track of time entirely, they somehow wound up in front of Take begging him for help in looking.

Chie found herself watching another conversation as a mere spectator. She had no idea what happened in the first conversation. However, when Ui went to light a cigarette the conversation went off track.  
  
Take reached forward and grabbed Ui’s hand before the lighter could even connect. “Huh?” He wondered aloud, before Take balled the lighter in his fist and threw it away.  
  
“Cigarettes are bad for you.” He said with no inflection in his voice. He wasn’t lecturing, merely stating a fact.  
  
Ui was pissed, regardless. He grabbed Take by the collar of his uniform and snarled. “How am I supposed to deal with your piece of shit excuses if I don’t have my smokes?” 

“Then don’t deal with them. I want to have it out with you this time. You’re upset but you wouldn’t tell me why the last time.”

“Can I hit you, senpai?” Ui asked.  
  
Take nodded his head. “Sure, but you have to tell me why you’re upset first.” He was firm on that point.  
  
Ui finally relaxed his grip slightly. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot. Is all Arima said for the zero squad really for them to just keep fighting to protect Kaneki after he was gone? Is that all he thought they were good for.”

“I don’t know…” Take repeated again.

“I don’t really either, but lately I’ve been spending time with Hajime. When he’s out fighting ghouls he smiles like a madman, but when he tries to make Hairu’s bed, or tend to her to make her more comfortable, his smile is a lot smaller and it looks like he’s an actual child.” Ui shook his head. “Why are they fighting, Take? It’s messed up, it’s so messed up. It’s way beyond normal, it’s inhuman.”  
  
“You’re always the one telling us zero squad members how to act.” Take sighed. “If the world is like this, then everybody has to fight. There’s no helping it.”  
  
“Not everybody! There are people who can’t fight. That’s why we fight for them!”

Instead of reciting words from a play, it sounded like these two were arguing in a comic book, Chie noted as she zoomed in close enough on Ui’s face to see the sweat rolling down it.  
  
“You mean like a hero? Arima was a hero, but he’s dead.”

“You were my hero too, senpai! I looked up to both you and Arima. Everybody thought you were incredible as well, you were the only one who gave credit only to Arima.”

Take’s hands tightened. “I needed Arima. That’s why… I wanted him to acknowledge me.”  
  
“Acknowledge yourself already! The one whose fighting right now is you, not Arima. So decide for yourself and act like you’ve got a damn head on your shoulders.”

Take went silent then. It took him a long time. Nobody there present could possibly understand what was going on in his head. When he finally finished, his answer was simple. “Fine.”  
  
“Fine what?” Ui asked.  
  
“Fine, let’s disband them. The oggai, the zero squad. I only have one request in return.”  
  
“What?” Ui parroted again.  
  
“Keep fighting with me, please. You’re right that I should acknowledge myself, but I still don’t want to fight alone.”  
  
Ui reached forward and looked as if he was about to slug Take for real, but at the last moment, he settled his hand on Take’s shoulder instead. “Of course. Since you’re so bad at speaking up, one of us needs to lecture that kind of ours.”

Tsukiyama paused for a moment. “Kaneki ordered the formation of the Oggai squad. If we were to dissolve them we’d be betraying his orders.”  
  
Take looked back at Tsukiyama, his lip quirked as if he were attempting a smile. “You should call me Judas, then.”

 “If you two can do it, then I’ll try to do the right thing as well. A Tsukiyama always needs to be bold. However, between the three of us, we’re not exactly the brains of the operation. If we can’t listen to Kaneki this time, then perhaps we should seek out his clever shadow.”

That was Tsukiyama’s way anyways, of convincing them all to help him look for Furuta. The three of them split up, Chie going with Shuu naturally trying to search the city once more.

 

♔

 

“Really? Here of all places? We could have saved a lot of time if we just went to the most obvious place to look.” Chie complained as they finally spotted Furuta lurking in the back of the :re Cafe.  
  
When they reached him, they noticed his suit was stained with something. The tension in Tsukiyama’s chest relieved when he noticed it was just dirt rather than blood. “Were you out playing in the mud?” Tsukiyama asked.

Furuta gave him a dry look. “I’m not a little kid, you know.” He said, before straightening himself using the shovel he was carrying as support.

“An adult would know not to track dirt in my cafe.” Chie looked behind her to notice that Touka had walked in just a few moments after they had.

“I’m sorry. I hope you’ll forgive me,” Furuta said, looking rather meek as he raised his head to meet Touka’s eyes.

Touka looked at him with one cold eye. “I don’t think you know what those words mean. Anyway, did you start walking around on your own again just to cause more trouble?”

Furuta held up three fingers in the air. “You brought three things back with you from that lab raid to rescue me. The first was the pathetic me, the second was Kimi, a prisoner, and the third was the corpse of Arata Kirishima.”

Touka’s gaze changed at the mention of the name. Quite seriously, she brushed her hair back with her fingers and looked at him with two eyes now.  
  
“What are you doing now? If this is a set up-”  
  
“It’s not…” Furuta said, staring at his feet rather meekly again. “I wanted to give him a grave. Most ghouls don’t get one. I thought it would ease your mind a little bit.” Furuta’s hands tightened around the shovel. He had taken off his gloves and was standing there with his bare hands. “I don’t understand why your father’s death upset you so much. From my perspective, he was better off dead than alive and in pain but I… I’m sorry I made that decision for you.”

Furuta had picked up the blade and finished her father as a mercy kill. Tsukiyama had been there himself to see it, and told Chie about it secondhand. “I thought I was doing it for you, one final bout of strength so I could dirty my hands so you wouldn’t have to, but… I was probably just doing it for myself. I couldn’t stand to see your eyes so racked with indecision and sadness.”

Furuta covered his eyes and the last bit of strength he had to stand up faded away. “I’m sorry…” he muttered in between his hands. Over and over again, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

He sunk all the way to the floor, curled up like a child.  
  
Touka walked a few steps forward and stood over him. “What are you sorry about?” She asked.

 “I should have realized it sooner. I could have lived life normally, even coming from that place I did… or I could have tried. There was still a chance even for me, but I know it’s too late now.”

Touka shook her head gently. “It’s not too late.” She reached down and poked him on the cheek. “You know, Kaneki has done terrible things as well. He ate one hundred ghouls in the gourmet club. He tortured and cannibalized to get stronger. Then, he’s become king and started acting like a tyrant in order to scare humans and protect his friends. All of these things though, he always does them where I can’t see them. He smiles and hides away the worst parts of himself. You though, you smile in front of everyone else, but you’re making such an ugly and pathetic face just for me.”

Touka was right, it was a good face.  
  
Chie zoomed in with her camera and snapped a picture of that face as well.  
  
“What do you plan to do from now on? You said yourself, even a person like you has a chance, right? Tell me you’ve got some kind of plan, you always seem to have a plan.” Touka said. She almost seemed like she was getting impatient behind her saintly smile.  
  
Furuta weakly pointed up at some books he had stacked up on the shelf. “Touka, from now on will you be my study partner?” 

“Huh?” Touka did not quite get it.  
  
“The first time we met you were touring Kamii university, right? I was the student reading that you mistook for Kaneki. If your weak spot is literature, then I can tutor you. Don’t feel bad because you failed the exams once, a lot of people enter the university later on in life.”

“I didn’t fail my exams, jackass!”

“That’s a little bit defensive. Are you worried about failing a second time?”

“I never failed the first time. Besides, why would somebody whose only good for paperwork think they’re going to be any use teaching me?”

“That hurts you know. I’m trying my best to redeem myself. You can’t cut the nimu-redemption arc short right before it even begins.”

“If you want to redeem yourself then stop leaving Roma unsupervised in my cafe! Do you know how many dishes she broke while you were gone?”

Shuu and Chie both glanced at one another. They felt like they were intruding on something. In the background, the two murderers attempting to live normal lives continued to bicker with one another.

Outside the rain finally started to fall, coating the cafe with the sound of a sudden shower. But no one inside found it to be depressing.

No one’s spirit was broken. Nothing changed.  
It was neither beautiful nor ugly.  
The rain just fell.  
_Shuu, shuu._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who, who. Who, who. Who, who. Who, who.


	19. Ibis/Iblis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is for all intents and purposes the last chapter. Next chapter will be a short epilogue. Enjoy!

“The Ui and the Tsukiyama families poured their vast resources to smuggle one hundred children out of the country overnight. I’m not sure whether to be proud of them for such an undertaking or angry at their betrayal.”

Kaneki said, as he brought back tea for his roommate. The first time he tried to make her coffee, she simply turned the cup upside down and spilled it on the floor. When he asked her to clean it up, she refused him.   
  
He was amazed when he saw her drink tea for the first time. A half ghoul who could still eat human food, but was not a Quinx. She was the real deal, what he had been made artificially to copy. He felt awe at her presence alone.

Even though they were living together it was not like they were in the middle of a tryst. When Kaneki returned from the front, rather than spending his time at :re more and more often lately he had been talking over tea with her. Well, she drank tea and he just sipped hot water. He tried to offer her coffee a few more times, only for her to tell him caffeine was bad for her.   
  
“It’ll stunt my growth.” She joked. He was kind enough to laugh at her jokes, but she knew it was forced. His eyes gave it away, one red and one colorless. They each had a ghoul eye in an opposite eye, her right and his left. If she were an author of romance novels she would write it was a sign that the two of them were meant to be each other’s opposite halves.

However, she was a writer of tragedy so she made no such observation. She listened to his reports of what went on in the one eyed king’s rebellion as she always did. It was the only subject that when he talked she would listen attentively to. A few times he would try to chat with her about books, or something else pleasant. As tempting as it was, and truly, it was tempting much moreso than she would ever admit, she never let him get away with it. She was a harsh mistress after all, she would move him back to the subject without mercy.   
  
Really, sometimes she felt like she had taken on too much at once. It took an entire lifetime of conditioning to turn her beloved little Kishou into nameless, the person who lived and died on the title of king. She needed to go out of her way to refocus Kaneki, to remind him who he was.

He was the young boy who became a nameless king. It wasn’t something he could go back from, the books he loved, the coffee he enjoyed, as long as he sat on the throne he should not want for anything.

She had one fear. Kaneki seemed to bleed kindness and emotional intimacy. She was surprised he had gone so long without being eaten like that, as he was always walking around with a bleeding heart and that was like ketchup on a steak for a ghoul.

Sometimes he would remind her of a man she despised. A man she watched through a coffee shop window, having a carefree time laughing with his subordinates with his eyes shut and a kind smile on his mouth.

That man gave kindness to those starved for it, and convinced them to hole themselves up as well in his little cafe and hide away from the world. That man was the reason why she decided enough of love, enough of kindness, she would never be stopped from fighting the world for such reasons. She would never need it.

Takatsuki Sen did not quote herself often as some other authors, it was a bit egotistical, but she did truly believe she was someone who had left behind all needed things in the womb.

Her fear was this, that the same way she was trying to influence him to go without, that Kaneki would in turn influence her to begin to need those things again. It was like a long-form game played between the two in their many conversations. Eto was not entirely sure Kaneki was aware of it, or that he consented, but it happened all the same.

Today he was trying to lean on her for advice once again. He sipped his coffee thoughtfully while he waited for her response. The thing was despite her lending an ear to him all this time, she never directly told him what to do. That was her simple trick to get him to figure these things out for himself from now on.  He finally asked her. “What do you think should be done with them?”

“Hmm, I don’t know…” She hummed. “What kind of king do you want to be? A good friend would forgive them, but a good friend doesn’t make a good king.”

Kaneki sighed, exhaling and blowing ripples into his coffee. “Answering a question with a question is rude you know.”

“Really, I think calling other people rude is rude.” If he wanted to pointlessly bicker, Eto could indulge in that too, as she gripped her tiny fingers around the warmth of her mug.

“The problem isn’t really betrayal, it’s not like I want them to be puppets who can’t think for themselves, or faceless and disposable like your aogiri.”

“But they did it without consulting you, right?”

“No, it’s not that.”

“They didn't’ need you. They were able to save all those kids without you.”

Kaneki went silent for a moment. He stared at his murky reflection in the coffee instead of at her. “No, it’s fine. They did the right thing. It was my mistake to use all of those kids just because it was what Furuta would have done. I need to lead with my own strength, not borrowing from him.”  
  
Eto noticed how easily it was for Kaneki to slide away the blame for that decision from himself and place it on Furuta’s shoulders. She wondered if they were enemies rather than being on the same side, how much eventually instead of his own failings that Kaneki would blame on Furuta. As if that poor child of the garden was some kind of mastermind and puppeteer that rendered free will useless.

Oh well. Ultimately her perspective was that of an author’s. She was merely musing on the agency of the characters involved like a literary critic would. She sipped her tea, unaffected by these passing thoughts. “Oho, so you’re going to make up the strength for one hundred Kaneki Ken’s all on your own? You should be careful my king, if your head gets too swollen you won’t be able to fit your crown upon it.”

“We haven’t seriously fought ghoul investigators head on yet with our forces. I can reorganize things to make a serious army out of ghouls rather than just a group conducting guerrilla raids.” Despite how seriously they were taking things, the number of combat-ready ghouls they had did not even match Aogiri’s. It almost made Rueshima seem like a waste of life, a funeral pyre more than a sacrificial one. Most of the ghouls they took in were refugees, and Kaneki did not know how to force them to fight the same way Eto did.   
  
He had several big hitters that followed him around in his personal circle, but as for the vast majority they were just rank B and C ghouls. If she were to describe them in a novel she would not spend more than two sentences elaborating on them. Before she could bring this point up, Kaneki talked over her. “It doesn’t matter how many strong ghouls we get though, we don’t have the resources to match the CCG. It’s like you said when ghouls were at their height of power, and humans at their weakest we still lost. I tried to interrupt the production of Quinques, and tried to seize Kanou but neither of those operations succeeded.”

Kaneki’s porcelain white coffee cup started to crack. He was squeezing it to the point of breaking with his bare hand. Both of his hands had become flesh again, even the one she had seen Kanae tear off the first time the two of them met atop that tower.   
  
She wondered if she was an author of romance novels, if that event would be called a ‘meet cute.’ On a whim, she changed the subject to relieve the oppressively serious aura that was constricting him. “Oh, your hair has changed to black again. It looks cute, like when I first met you.”   
  
“You mean on the tower?”

“No, even before that. Remember, I was the little girl in bandages who was hiding behind Tatara.”

Besides Ayato, Eto was pretty sure that the two of them were the only people left in that room who were still alive.

“You know back then Tatara stabbed me and you just watched while I bled out,” Kaneki tried to take another sip from his cracked coffee cup, but it proved too difficult for him and he ended up spilling on his lap.  
  
Before he could even move to clean himself, Eto had already gotten up. She snatched a napkin from the table, and pressed it against his lap. “I’ll do it for you, my king.” What Kaneki feared most of all was not distance, he was used to distance the same way she was. He feared closeness. He was so easy to read if she thought about how similar they were. As she pressed against him dabbing where the coffee spilled his face became more and more uncomfortable. “Oh, that. That was because your face looks so cute when it’s all twisted up in pain and confusion. I couldn’t help but watch.”

“You should find better hobbies!” Kaneki squeaked out.   
  
“I already have a hobby. I’m an author by profession, Takatsuki sen. Haven’t you heard of me?”

“Then you should learn to tell the difference between fiction and reality.”

Eto Yoshimura giggled then, usually she only giggled out of a sense of sadism but this time she laughed truly. “You first.” She said, before pushing him away and returning to her feet once more.   
  
This time it was Kaneki who hurriedly changed the subject. “If we had the strength of the one eyed owl we could make up the difference. The king is a symbol of hope to ghouls, but the owl is a symbol that strikes fear in the heart of ghoul investigators.”

Eto giggled again. This time though, it was not her genuine laugh. “Ohoho, oh you know I’d love to tear them up and gnash them between my teeth again, but my body’s not in the condition for that kind of thing anymore.”

Ever since her fight with Furuta, even though her limbs had come back after Kaneki forcefully fed her, and her body looked perfectly round and plump, she suffered from spells of weakness and she did not have the strength to even leave the apartment on her own for long. The reason Kaneki lived with her was only partially to borrow her wisdom for his leadership, the other reason was his worry that if he took his eyes off of her she might just fade away and die some place he could not see.

_I want the world to end while I’m aware of it._

Kaneki was definitely that kind of person. He had been watching her closely for that reason, for so long now.   
  
“Takatsuki-sensei, what’s the real reason why you won’t have caffeine in your tea anymore?” Kaneki asked her out of the blue again.   
  
This time though, Eto did not have a smug and confident grin waiting in response to that. She did not expect him to be that observant.

“You’re not in the shape to fight because you’re pregnant right? Ah, that’s surprising. You’re not as terrible of a mother as I thought you’d be.”

Eto had never meant to tell him, but like some cliche her hand immediately went to grip her stomach. Kaneki’s words were inaccurate though, she was only a mother if she had a child. This… this was just a side effect, another unintended consequence just like herself.   
  
“You seem confident. For all you know it could be yours.”

Kaneki shook his head. “You’ve been like that since you came here. Even if… from when we… no, it’s definitely Arima’s right?”

Eto shrugged. “You seem to have made up your mind about it, so my input isn’t necessary.”

Kaneki grasped at empty air with his free hand. Then he did something surprising and moved all on his own, pushing her forward and back into her chair. He let his hands rest on the armrests as he leaned over her. “You’re right, it doesn’t matter. I can step into whatever role you need of me, be it king or father.”

There were times that he reminded her of Yoshimura, but when he looked down at her with such cold eyes as if to shut the rest of the world out, she could see nothing but Arima in that gaze. “Hmm, what are you suggesting?”

“How do ghouls get married, Takat- no, Eto?”  
  
“Well you see, they do this.” Eto leaned forward, and dragged her tongue over his cheek until she reached the corner of his eye. Then she licked it, his kakugan which had activated from stress alone.   
  
Unlike last time, he did not tear her in half the moment she was finished. Rather, he stared her down with a look that might have had the exact same cutting power. “Take this seriously.”

“I was, it was an engagement ring between the two of us. I need you to sign a prenuptial agreement first though.” She dropped those serious terms into her speech as if she really was entertaining his offer.

“What is that?” he asked, eyes looking lost again.

She wrapped her arms around him, and cooed at him softly urging him to relax. Kaneki who had been forcing himself to stand strong this entire time instantly came undone, and slowly sank into her lap. His head rested there, and then pushed in further as if he was trying to bury himself away from the world in her.   
  
She leaned over him, and then carefully with both of her hands lifted his head up once more and from the side tasted his face with her tongue. He still had flecks of blood on him from a fight earlier. Besides that, he tasted of sweat and something salty. “You’re so sweet and cute when you’re trying to please me, you know. Just become my king and I’ll be happy with you.”

“I’m already your king.”

“Then I’m happy, my king. Don’t feel bad, merely fighting against this world is a victory in itself. I’m sure in different circumstances, you might have merely hid away and become complacent. The fact that you’re still fighting means I’m happy.”

He stared off into the distance. The next moment his body seemed to come to life again, as if her eccentric way of holding and comforting him actually worked. “No… I’ve figured it out now, you don’t need to be owl. There’s another one eyed owl, we’ll just replace you with him. We can replace the replacement.”

“Oh, did you finally think of something? To be honest, you’re turning out to be not as stupid as I thought.”

“You need to learn how to pay compliments better.” Kaneki snapped at her quickly, before straightening up and finishing his train of thought. “All we’ve done so far is make Guerilla attacks on symptoms. There is no way we’d have enough men to destroy quinque production though or do anything besides raid the labs while the CCG still stood. What we need is to strike at the head.”

“Are you going to finish it in one decisive blow?”

“No, I’m going to begin it with a bang.” Kaneki stood up on his own now. He began to button up the buttons of his black shirt that had become undone and looked for his black jacket. “I’ll tell you the rest of the plan later, but I need to speak with the other owl first.”

He said, before disappearing out the door.

Eto sighed. “He didn’t even say goodbye.” She stood up on her own this time and went looking for the refrigerator. “What a rude child you are, you can’t just assume that people are going to be waiting for you to come back.”

 

♔

 

Yoshimura Eto was an author. Only part time though, she had spent the rest of her life dedicating herself to being a terrorist. It was more like a hobby than a career. That was why she did not believe it, not really, when Shiono praised her as a high class author.

She pushed that useless thought aside and tried to indulge in her hobby instead. Face fresh with bloody meat, Eto swallowed down and tried to wring every drop of energy she could out of it. While she had been content in the sidelines until now, Eto wanted to practice her hobby again. She wanted to observe the outside world at least one more time.

This time she stood on her own looking outside the window to see if Kaneki had already passed. She sniffed the air for his scent, and when she was sure he was no longer nearby, she bounded forward.

As easily as she once did, the owl flew over the city like a circling raptor looking above for prey. The first two victims she found were a boy of black hair and a girl of pink. She remembered them, the first was the one who led the Tsukiyama extermination operation, and the second was that lovely little head that Kanou liked to keep in a jar.

Oh, so she’s alive now then. Eto thought, accepting of that odd reality a bit too easily. Of course she was also a blatant half existence that was only stitched together and barely alive so she really couldn’t judge.

She landed on the rooftop of the old, now abandoned mansion watching as the two of them stood together talking in a dead garden. She was so small and her footsteps so light they did not even notice her.

It took her a moment to recognize them a second time. Oh, those two were Arima’s sycophants. Part of her had wondered idly what they were doing like now that Arima had finally kicked the bucket. If they had gone through their entire character arcs and she had missed it, she might just be disappointed.   
  
She watched them then, her feet hanging off from where she sat and idly kicking her legs.

Koori Ui (the black kokeshi doll) engaged his quinque. Taruhi snapped from its cold steel form, into something pulsing, red, and alive. He held onto the pole arm with one hand and pointed it at Hairu.   
  
“You’ve been sitting around a while, so don’t get careless when I come at you.”

Hairu (the pink Kokeshi doll) brandished a much more generic looking quinque. Eto surmised her original one must have been stolen and she was merely using a spare they had scrounged up. It was hard for a ghoul rebellion to keep Quinques in storage anyway. “You’re the one who always lost to both me and Haise during sparring matches. I’m not sure where this confidence is coming from Koori, but it’s very cute.”

Ui exhaled. With his free hand he started to chew on his fingernails. What a disgusting habit Eto thought, she wondered if he was doing it as a substitute for some other addiction he had quit recently. “You half ghouls all think you’re so hot. You know I became special class without having somebody shove a kagune in me.”

Hairu groaned. “Koori, please don’t start with the ‘kids these days’ monologue. You’re going to sound like more of an old man than you already are.”

That made Ui suddenly and seriously brandish his quinque again. Just before the two of them were about to face off against one another though, the cry of a child interrupted them.

Which brat is this one, Eto thought as she saw a child with bandages around his face and a black hat that hung loosely on his head run out between the two of them. Hajime Hazuki (the brat) cried out in a tantrum. “This is no fair at all! Why are you sending me away! I can be way stronger than Hairu, she’s just some girl!”

“Oi, watch it.” Hairu said, dropping her quinque to her side.

It was Ui who once again acted like the old man. He walked in front of Hajime and squatted down to get to his level. Carefully, he reached out and straightened the hat that had gone floppy on his head. “I’ve told you again an again Hajime, you don’t have to fight. Seriously, do brats like you ever listen, or am I going to have to wait until you get older?”

“You’re never going to see me when I get older. If you two fight on your own and I’m not with you, then I’ll die for sure.”

“We won’t die..” Ui said in a calm voice.   
  
“Yeah you will! A ghoul will tear you apart and I won’t even be able to recognize you anymore.”

“We won’t die,” he repeated.

“How do I know that?”

“It’s because we have you to come home to. No matter what, even if I’m just a torso I’ll roll home to you okay?”

“Even if I lose my head I’ll find you.” Hairu perked up in the background.   
  
Ui looked over his shoulder to give her a dry look.

Before Hajime could say anything else, Shio Ihei ran out the door to greet him. “Come on Hajime! Take said that the place we’re going has melon bread and lots of it.”

Shio dragged along a reluctant Rikai, who was holding tightly onto his hand. Hajime looked up and quickly dried the tears in his eyes, not wanting to cry in front of his peers. “W-what are you doing holding hands?” He asked, before sticking his tongue out. “Don’t you know that’s gross!”

“Rikai said we had to do it so we didn’t get lost. I’m her buddy.”

Rikai looked away. “J-just go with it.”   
  
Before Hajime could say anything else, Yusa appeared next to him and quietly took his hand. “I guess I’m your buddy then.”   
  
“Hey! I don’t need any buddies.”

“If you don’t want any friends, then don’t act like such a lonely brat all the time.” Ui said behind him.   
  
The bickering was probably going to continue, if Take Hirako had not silently walked out as well and cut through them. “We should get going now.” He said straight to the point. “Yusa I want to trust you with something special. Make sure to walk my dogs when you’re there, alright?”

It almost looked like a happy epilogue. Eto wanted to vomit, at least for more reasons that she usually wanted to vomit these days.   
  
She recognized Hirako best from the Arima sycophants. She decided to follow him next, running along power lines, and on the rooftops of low buildings as they moved easily through the wards of Tokyo.   


♔

 

Take Hirako (boring face) gave an empty sigh when the children were finally out of sight from him. He looked up at the sky. The sky expanded outwards in every direction, it looked nearly infinite in scope. However, he saw nothing at all inside of it. 

He took a twisted pathway back home, and ended up not being able to rejoin Ui for tonight after all. Instead, he wandered into a place called the HYSY artmask studio, which from its decor looked like where all lost things eventually ended up.

“Can you make me a mask?” Take Hirako asked him.   
  
Uta (no face) looked up from what he was working on with his two pitch black eyes. “You didn’t even say hello or ask me how my day was yet.”

“How was your day?”  
  
“It was good, there was even a little bit of cannibalism,” Uta said as he plucked an eyeball from a dish and then placed it into his mouth, swallowing it in one bite.

 “I’m sure a good day for you is a bad day for someone else.”  
  
“Now you’re just being mean to me.” The clown whined.   
  
Take however, did not even seem to notice that the other was whining. “It’s not mean if it’s honest.”

Uta straightened up and put his sketch pad aside. He cleared off a the mannequin torso he had sitting on one of his chairs, and offered the free chair to Take. Take accepted and slowly made his way to the chair, settling down inside of it.

There seemed to be no apprehension in him at all, even as Uta approached him from behind and wrapped measuring tape around his face. He must have been an easy customer to deal with, thought Eto, considering how little his face moved.   
  
“Why did you decide to ask for a mask today?” Uta asked, whispering it into his ear from behind.

“I’m not the kind of person who chats when he’s getting his haircut, can we just move on with this.”

“I need to understand you better in order to make the perfect mask.”

“I… I had a dream the other day that you made me a mask.”

“Was it a naughty dream?” 

“Nevermind, I don’t want to do this anymore.”  
  
Uta laughed in a dry way, but continued to measure his face. After a long silence that seemed perfectly comfortable between the two of them he finally spoke again. “You don’t even need to tell me, I already know why you want a mask.”   
  
Take said nothing at all.   
  
“You want to hide that crying face of yours.”

“I’m crying?” Take said, and then reached up to his face to inspect it only to see nothing was there. “No, I’m not crying.”

“Yes you are.” Uta said, as he smiled down at him.   
  
The affairs of clowns mattered little to Eto though, so she simply got bored at that point and wandered away looking for something else interesting to find.

 

♔

 

She finally made her way to the Re: Cafe. This place was more tolerable than Anteiku at least. She saw two silhouettes standing near a window in the second floor. As she watched them from across the street, Eto only thought of one thing. Thank god for ghoul hearing, it made eavesdropping so easy.   
  
“Amon still won’t wake up…” Akira (Blondie) said into her hands. There was actually a third body there, but he had a hospital bed clumsily added to the room that he lied on now and a medical bag hung from an IV stand, slowly drip feeding him some substance she did not recognize. Since this was Amon Koutarou who had irregular RC Cell levels though, she deduced it was RC suppressant.

“Oi, who gave you permission to act like sleeping beauty anyway, big guy.” Takizawa Seidou (Towel) walked over and poked his sleeping friend as if that was going to wake him.

Akira crossed her arms and looked away as if she could not bear to look at either of them. It was only then that Seidou came from behind and wrapped his arms around her. Akira relaxed into his grip. If Eto were writing this scene she would have had Seidou bite into Akira’s neck at this exact moment.   
  
Instead all he did was leave a soft kiss there, how lame. “Let’s go find Kanou then, you and me. We’ll drag his ass back here and make him fix Amon up real nice.”

Akira bit her lip. “You don’t have to keep saving us, you know.”

“I’m not trying to save you. That’s why I asked if we could do this together.”

Eto could detect another boring conclusion without a hint of tragedy and slid down the pole she was currently hanging off of. She saw on the lower floor four ghouls gathered. Touka Kirishima (Bunny), Ayato Kirishima (Angry Bunny), Hinami Fueguchi (Naive) and Furuta Nimura (She didn’t have a funny nickname she just hated that guy).   
  
The four of them were gathered around a table with the closed sign turned around in their cafe. There were plenty of textbooks between them. Furuta leaned over Touka and pointed out the words in one of them, reading them along with her.

“You know I think Roma had an easier time reading through this part.” Furuta teased her with lightly, which caused Touka to swat up at him.

In the background Roma, (wait who was that? Oh she remembered that was that ghoul she broke out of the cochlea) piped up from where she was mopping the floor. “It’s true! I did!”

“Roma’s got cobweb brains Touka, you at least have to do better than her.”

“Hey, if you make fun of my sister one more time I’m going to kick your ass,” Ayato growled from across the table.   
  
“I’m not making fun of her, it’s just the way we flirt. You should hear our bedroom talk.”

“What the fuck did you just say to me?”

Hinami immediately had to throw her arms around him to pacify him.

From the background came the sound of a plate shattering. “Damnit, Roma!” Touka called out without looking up from her book.   
  
“Hey, this time it was Rio.”   
  
“Stop trying to blame it on Rio. You’re supposed to watch over him so even if he smashed the plate, it’s still your fault.” 

Eto stopped watching after that point. The presence of Furuta and the inane banter soured the experience for her. Her eyes lazily traveled elsewhere looking for something interesting to spectate.

She saw standing in the grove of a nearby tree, a white haired boy in an eyepatch who she almost mistook for Kaneki for a second. He watched the inside of the cafe from a distance, concealing himself with the tree. Eto saw his hands move to his shirt, and tug on it pulling it hard to conceal his nerves.

She recognized him of course. Mutsuki Tooru, one of the children who used to follow Kaneki around. She also saw him reaching for knives that were concealed underneath his coat. Oh, was he going to lead an attack all on his own? Disrupt this happy scene? Eto found herself intrigued for a moment.   
  
Then, the kind of coincidence that only happened in story books occured. Right at that moment Kaneki Ken walked by heading in the exact same direction towards :re He turned his head and noticed Mutsuki standing there.

Eto herself hid herself further in the alleyway, as far as she could without giving up her front row seat.

“Mutsuki?” Kaneki said, breaking the silence between the two of them. Tension so thick it could be cut with a knife (good thing Mutsuki had so many, Eto thought then snickered) disappated between the two of them in an instant.   
  
Mutsuki's nerves seemed to disappear, and he had a dreamy look in his eye. “Sensei? Sensei, Sensei, Sensei, Sensei.” Mutsuki rushed forward and grabbed the bottom of Kaneki’s shirt now pulling him closer.   
  
It was Kaneki who acted to push Mutsuki away, grabbing him squarely by the shoulders and looking into his one eye. “Mutsuki, what are you doing here alone? That’s a cafe filled with ghouls you know, it could have been dangerous. Where are the rest of the Q’s?”

“I came to this place alone because I remembered coming here with you once with everybody else. I knew you’d be here. I was so happy to find you again!” Mutsuki’s hand reached up and tightened around where Kaneki held him at the shoulders. “I’m the only one who believed in you. I knew you’d never betray us.”

“Mutsuki…” Kaneki stopped and looked as if he was choosing his words carefully for a moment. “You’re wrong about me, I did betray you.”

“No, sensei. You’d never choose ghouls over us.”

“Mutsuki, I’m not your Sensei anymore, I resigned.”

“That wasn’t your fault, you were going through something.”   
  
“Listen!” Kaneki raised his voice which caused Mutsuki’s frantic murmuring and mouth to snap shut in an instant. “The reason I left the Q’s was because I was going to kill myself. I fully intended on leaving you behind from the start, even before I left to join the ghouls.”   
  
Mutsuki’s eyes clouded with tears. He was trying to smile still, but his mouth just twitched in an odd way. His whole expression looked ugly, as tears suddenly and uncontrollably leaked out of the corner of his eye. “No… no but why? Why would you tell me the truth now? I wouldn’t have minded if you kept lying to me as long as it was to make me happy.”   
  
“I’m sorry Mutsuki. I couldn’t be the Sensei you wanted me to be.” Kaneki’s fingers gently let go of Mutsuki’s shoulders. At that exact moment, Mutsuki flicked their wrist and summoned a knife from it. He lunged out trying to stab Kaneki from close range. However, Kaneki merely dodged it grabbing Mutsuki by the wrist and twisting it around.   
  
“You fight more like Juuzou now than anything I ever taught you, huh? Maybe that’s for the best.”

“Stop looking at me, stop noticing things about me, it’s pissing me off!”

“I’m sorry, I really am Mutsuki, but I’m not going to let you kill me to repent.” He twisted and twisted until Mutsuki’s knees buckled and he was on the ground in front of Kaneki. “I can’t go home now, so why don’t you just join me instead?”

“... I can’t join up with ghouls.” Mutsuki muttered after truly considering it.   
  
Kaneki leaned in close and smelled Mutsuki. “Why not? You already smell like human blood. Let me guess in preparation for bringing me back you’ve been eating and eating to get stronger. That’s fine, it’s not like I’m any better in that regard but… what exactly is the difference between you and a ghoul now?”

“It’s… it’s not my fault.” Mutsuki crumpled forward and Kaneki let him. The momentary burst of violence had subsided and the sobs returned. “I didn’t want to survive the surgery, or that time with my parent’s. I never asked to live, let alone become a ghoul!”

Kaneki looked down at Mutsuki for a moment, and then wrapped his arms around the other from behind. “Yeah, that’s right. You’re not the one who’s wrong Mutsuki, it’s the world that’s wrong. Just let me show you proof, I can get you to my side.”

Kaneki led Mutsuki along, taking the back entrance so nobody would notice them. He waited until Seidou and Akira left Amon alone in his room sleeping. Then Kaneki walked along the edge of the bed and sat on it.

“That’s the ghoul we fought on Rueshima…” Mutsuki said nervously.   
  
Kaneki shook his head. “He’s not a ghoul. He’s a ghoul investigator, first class Amon Koutarou. He was quite famous a few years ago before they erased everything about him.” At that moment Kaneki told a white lie to convince Mutsuki. “The CCG made him into a ghoul, just like they gave that surgery into you. They’re the evil ones here. You wouldn’t have been able to hurt anybody Mutsuki, if the CCG hadn’t given you a quinque, or a kagune.”

The weak wanted to be led by the strong. Mutsuki merely wanted his Sensei back and the sense of security that came with him.

Kaneki looked down at Amon for a moment, and then in an instant changed his soft gaze to a hard one and punched him hard in the gut to wake him up.   
  
Amon came away spewing blood from his mouth. “Ahh? What? Father.. Mado I…” He looked up in a daze and saw Kaneki.   
  
“There you are, Amon-san. I thought about it for a long time and I figured it out. It’s not that you couldn’t wake up, it’s just that you didn’t want to because it would mean facing what you’d done.”

Amon seemed to reboot slowly, but the moment he remembered one of his eyes blackened from the stress alone.

Kaneki leaned forward and put a hand on Amon’s face, guiding his gaze gently back to him. “Amon, don’t look away. It doesn’t matter if you’ve sinned right? As long as you work hard to redeem yourself, or are those words only easy to say when it’s somebody else whose the sinner?”  
  
Amon looked down. “I… I shouldn’t fight anymore. It’s better if I sleep, or just avoid this conflict entirely. I always thought I had to do something, but that’s not true, I could just do nothing.”

Kaneki’s hand still on Amon’s face pinched his cheek. “Oi. Snap out of it already. When I was fallen you were the one to remind me of who I was, so I’m going to remind you now. I need your help Amon-san. From now on if you’re afraid that you’ll fall off your path again, then don’t worry because I’ll show up to beat you back onto it.”

Between the three of them present, Kaneki finally began to spell out his plan.

♔

  
Eto finally made it back to that apartment when she heard an unpleasant knock at the door. She was exactly right in her assumption of that knock when the door opened, and she saw a sickly clown walking through it.   
  
Furuta Nimura entered, leaning on a cane in order to walk. “Honey, I’m home.” He joked the moment he walked across the threshold.   
  
“You’re not welcome.” Eto said, glaring at the damned clown of Kanou.

“Ahh! Why are women always so rude to me?” Furuta said, putting on a face of genuine distress.   
  
“It’s because you’re unattractive and unpleasant,” She said, quickly shooting him down once more.   
  
Furuta settled on the chair that Kaneki usually sat on, and looked at her holding the cane in his hands. “I hope you won’t mind, since my body’s gotten all rusty I won’t be able to pull as many stunts as I did the last time we talked. I hope you won’t find it boring.”

“Your very existence isn’t even worth that much of my attention span.”

“Yeesh, so cold. Is this because I beat you half to death? I left you alive you know. This is what I get for being such a nice guy.” Furuta continued joking, but suddenly his eyes sharpened. “I just wanted to ask, what you were doing spying on us at the cafe?”

“It was a momentary interest, but it’s passed now. Kaneki’s friends sure are boring, no wonder he’s drifted away from them.”

“Actually, I had one more question. It’s not really a question, it’s more of a monologue. Overhearing what Kaneki was talking about with Amon upstairs, ghoul hearing am I right? Anyway, overhearing it I think I pieced together what his next big plan is. He’s going to recreate the Anteiku raid right? He’s going to use :Re as a trap to lure in investigators by having Mutsuki report back that Kaneki’s base of operations is secretly at :Re just like the 20th ward raid all those years ago. Then Amon will pop in as owl to distract all of them. That’s just the fireworks show though, what he’s really going to do is use the opening he can gain through Mutsuki to do… something.”  
  
“What, I thought you had it all figured out?”

“I’m just an extremely clever boy you know, I’m not all knowing nor am I psychic.”

The author sighed. She was getting tired of his presence already. No, she had gotten tired of it the moment he walked in the room. “So, are you upset that your precious place to return to is going to be destroyed?”

Furuta shrugged. “Nah, not really. Now that I know about it ahead of time I can just load everybody into an SUV and bail. Oh, but Rio and Roma might bicker in the back seats. Anyway, real estate is cheap these days, it’s a buyers market.” He put his hand in the air and spun it around flippantly, ever so flippantly.

“It seems you have it all figured out. Why come to me then?” As a person Eto had no interest in him at all, but as a character he was still a bit of an enigma. She was willing to risk asking this one question. 

“Well, now that I’ve told you Kaneki’s plan you should spill the beans. Come on, tell me what your plan was for the whole one eyed king deal? Were you just going to hand everything off to Kaneki and let him wing it?”

Eto gave him no response at all.  
  
“Fine, do you want me to tell you more? I was going to turn Kaneki into godzilla by having him eat 100 Oggai in a move of desperation. He was going to wreck Tokyo and kill everything.”   
  
“Well, what about after that?”

“What do you mean?”   
  
“Isn’t that just winging it? You didn’t care what happened next after Kaneki turned into a monster like the one eyed king of old, right?”

“Listen, listen I’m not trying to create a better world. I just wanted to kill everyone. I don’t have to plan for what happens next. If I was stopped, or if I died, then I’d just be a cool villain that everyone banded together to defeat in the end.” He clapped his hands together. The energetic Furuta faded away as quickly as it had come though, and he let his shoulders sag with sadness. “At least, that was what I thought at the time.”

Eto still gave him no response. She no longer wanted to even acknowledge his presence. It was only Kaneki’s honest request that he be kept alive that stopped her from trying to eat him, and maybe the sense that his meat would be foul if she tried.   
  
“Hey, stop looking down on me and tell me what your plan was already.” He called out to her one more time. Then, his eyes narrowed once more. “Oh, wait, did you even have one? In fact, did Aogiri really need to be sacrificed? That seems like a waste of life and you didn’t even knock out many of the special class investigators, just Houji right?”

Eto decided she did not want to hear this from the man who ranted about giant monsters destroying Tokyo as a part of his grand schemes. She was an author, but it’s not like this clown was any more in touch with reality than she was. “That’s private between me and Arima you know. Are you just mad he wouldn’t let you in on it? Your own brother, he was rebelling against your father too, but he looked down on you just like your father did.”

Furuta grinded his teeth but said nothing. He stood up once more clumsily and picked up his cane. “Nevermind, I don’t want to waste any more time on trying to figure out your plans, not when I could go home to Touka. Touka’s very cute you know, she’s that girl that Yoshimura raised instead of you. If only he had bothered to lift a finger to raise you, you might not have turned out so rotten.”

It was a war of attrition at this point. The two of them were just trading off useless blows. The clown laughed off everything that had been said as he walked outside, his steps aided by his cane.

He looks a little bit like Charlie Chaplin when he’s like that, Eto thought, and then dismissed the thought from her mind.

She was not spurred on from his conversation though. In fact Yoshimura Eto had planned to do this from the start, the moment Kaneki Ken made that foolish proposal.   
  
She reached out and took pen and paper. Even though Bilegyr King was her final work, she decided to write one more thing.   
  
A letter addressed to Kaneki Ken himself.

 

♔

 

Later that night, Kaneki Ken returned home to an empty apartment. He searched it frantically, only to come upon a letter.

The letter started out with _. “I’ve decided on my prenuptial agreement. I won’t marry you until you’ve destroyed the whole world. This is the part where I say something romantic like, I’ll be waiting for you in the new world, right? I couldn’t bring myself to write that down though. Here’s the truth of the matter, my presence was becoming a distraction. When you get close to people all you do is cling to them. People aren’t your strength, they’re the weakness that sends you into tragedy over and over again.”_     
  
The letter was much longer, and did contain may personal observations that Yoshimura Eto made on him like he was really the protagonist of her final novel. His tears blurred his eyes and made some parts impossible to read for him. He only focused again when he reached the ending _. “My king, here’s my final piece of advice to you. The strongest people are the ones who have nothing.”_

Kaneki read the letter over once more, and realized never once did she mention his name on it. She did not call him Kaneki Ken, or Sasaki Haise. 

Yoshimura Eto really did see him as nothing but her king. 

That was fine though, he thought.

He would follow her advice to the end. She had chosen him after all. 

He repeated this over again and again in his heart as he watched the letter burn away.   
He had burned it because he was afraid he would cling to even that, the last thing Eto left behind for him. 

What he needed to become… 

No, what he was all along… 

He was a nameless boy who the world had forgotten, and so the boy became a nameless king.


	20. Heibe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for coming this far! This is my first ever completed really long term project fic and I'm really proud to have finished it. Your support along the way made it all possible.

All at once TV’s over Tokyo glitched, and suddenly changed from whatever they were broadcasting. In the middle of the screen stood a man with mostly black hair, wearing a mask with bolts on his neck, and bare teeth drawn over his mouth.

He waved to the camera, awkwardly.

“I’ve never been on TV before. I wonder if I’m famous now…” He muttered under his breath, before straightening up and gesturing for the person holding the camera to zoom out. “No… I said zoom out, Uta, not in.” He complained as the camera lens zoomed in too close to his face.  
  
Once the camera man had backed out the full image of where he was standing could be made out. This nameless man in a mask stood in an office with a black and white checkered floor. He was surrounded by an equally eccentric looking entourage.

There was a man with a stubbly chin in a floral print shirt. Next to him sitting on the desk was a woman in a dress that showed off a great deal of her cleavage. Sitting behind all of them looking out the window was a man dressed in priest garb.

With the exception of the black haired man at the center they all had one thing in common, they were all wearing masks with different kind of clown motifs on them. The man in the Frankenstein masked stepped out of the way and behind him there was somebody sitting at the desk.  
  
Well, “sitting” as the camera refocused it was obvious he was being restrained by both the woman in the dress and the man in the floral print shirt.

The woman in the dress laughed. “You’re a good kid. You always keep your promises. I got to wear my new dress in the chairman’s office after all.”

The decals on the wall made it obvious. They were standing in the office of the chairman of the CCG, Washuu Matsuri. He as the man being restrained and pushed against the desk. Before the camera could linger on him though, Kaneki picked up the camera with his hand and directed it back towards his face.

“This is the nameless news channel. I’m your host nameless king! Now, I heard a scoop I thought you would all be interested in. It turns out that boy’s family over there, the Washuu was suppressing public knowledge. There’s a secret he’s keeping from all of you.”

Suddenly a voice began to play that belonged to none of the people present. It sounded almost prerecorded. The man who called himself nameless, picked up a recorder from his pocket and clearly indicated it as the source of the noise.  
  
_“My predecessors have contemplated long and hard what is the best way to control the masses? It turns out that it is to focus their gazes on one thing, and then your average group of idiots walking in step can easily be coerced to even end their own lives. Therefore, we dress up some regular enemies and have the CCG take them out. The clowns, the Tsukiyama family, etc. At times they may be politicians, or perhaps celebrities, journalists, terrorists, doesn’t matter. As long as you sit on the throne you will never want for sustenance.”_

“The Washuu exist, and they’re controlling your public perceptions to make you fight pointless wars with ghouls while they reap all the spoils of those wars.” Nameless walked over and from his waist drew up a katana which he leveled at Washuu Matsuri’s throat. There were nine other that had been stabbed in the desk, a sign of some great fight that was undertaken to lay siege to this room. Many more corpses littered the floor, but they could only be seen as blurry and just out of shot. “Isn’t that right? Hey, Washuu boy tell me is what they said on the tape really true?”

Matsuri said nothing, lifting his head and staring at the camera weakly. Nameless lowered his sword for a moment only to grab the back of Matsuri’s head with his hand, and slam it into the desk. “Answer them!”

“It’s true… it’s all true. The Washuu, the CCG, all of it. I don’t care anymore, I just want to live… not until… father you…”

He looked barely awake, but the admission seemed genuine. He was a man who had been lying all of his life and had grown tired of the lie.

The camera was placed down for a second and the camera man, a man wearing a visor like mask with a cross over his eyes stepped forward. He handed Nameless a second mask. One that had a cross over one eye and a heart over the other. It had a great cartoonishly big pair of lips displaying teeth and stitches on either side of his face. Nameless peeled off the leather and cast away the other mask, and started affixing that one to his face.

Suddenly the video feed flickered and cut off for a second. It restored a moment later. “Sorry about that. I have an amateur handling the camera, and to make this broadcast possible, I had to put my men at great risk to attack and lay siege to several TV stations.” Nameless was holding a cell phone to his ear. “Nishiki, Tsukiyama, we won’t have any more interruptions right?”  
  
Somebody yelled someting in French at the other end of the line. Satisfied, Nameless tossed the phone aside.

 “I’m not just nameless, I’m the one eyed king. I’m the one meant to bring a peace between humans and ghouls. There’s no reason for us to fight anymore. It’s all a lie told to us by the Washuu for their own benefit. Let’s join hands and destroy them and their underlings the CCG, so we can create a perfect world together.”

He drew his katana one more time and placed it at the back of Matsuri’s neck. “We shoulder their deaths to bring us all peace.” He said, sounding righteous, just before he cleaved his head off in one swing.

The broadcast cut off after that point.

♔

Sometime later, Hideyoshi Nagachika who had been watching the entire thing on his TV screen alone in his room, stormed the CCG chairman’s office with his close ally Marude and several people who had followed Marude after his disappearance.  
  
Even though they charged in guns blazing, they walked into a completely empty office. Underneath his scarecrow mask, Hide looked around for a second unable to process what had happened.  
  
That man he had seen on tv, he was nothing like the Kaneki he knew. Perhaps that was why he called himself nameless, he threw the identity of Kaneki Ken away. Still, his heart ached as he wondered who was behind the strings controlling Kaneki this time.

While he was staring silently, suddenly the phone on the chairman’s desk rang. Hide cautiously approached to answer it. “Yo, Hide, is that you?” A familiar voice came out on the other end. “I’m really happy to talk to you again, buddy. Though, I guess I’ll be the one doing all the talking. I’m sorry, it’s all my fault.”

Hide said nothing at all. He struggled for a few syllables but it sounded like “Agghneki.”

“Actually this is all pre-recorded. I knew if I called from anyplace you guys would try to trace the call to find me. I have a lot of questions like, why didn’t you tell me you were alive? Why didn’t you join me if you had a force of men behind you all this time? I guess I’m not going to get those answers though.”

Hide once again said nothing.  
  
“I just had a few comments. First of all I don’t think it’s the best idea allying with Marude. Do you really think he’s going to be that different from the Washuu when he’s put in charge? What is his plan, just do the CCG again but better this time, for reasons? Well, whatever that’s not really any of my concern. He can walk in and declare himself the new chairman for all I care. Hide I wanted to tell you this. I don’t think you make that great of a terrorist. What exactly were you even rebelling against? Furuta was the one who took care of the Washuu, and Eto and I were the ones who challenged the CCG. That’s fine though Hide, you don’t need to be a terrorist. You don’t have to go that far for my sake.”

Hide could not say anything even if he wanted to.   
  
“Why don’t you just come back to me? I want to see you again, terribly. Let’s explain everything that we’ve been hiding from each other all this time. Well, you probably won’t. You’ll just keep protecting me from afar but the offer is on the table if you want it.”  
  
Hide was going to open his mouth to say something to Marude, or even drop the phone so he could write something down but suddenly the voice on the phone spoke up again to leave one last belated message.  
  
“Oh, and I rigged the entire office to explode so you know… be careful about that.”  
  
Bang.  
  
Kaneki Ken kept the promise that Furuta made to the clowns a long time ago. He ended it with a bang.

♔

Afterwards, the clowns all tipped one back in the club known as Helter Skelter in celebration of the fireworks show they had put on today. Apparently, the clowns went wild after such operations but the man who now called himself nameless had no interest in that. 

He sat at the bar staring at his blood wine in a glass, with one red eye, and one colorless one. He only looked up because Uta approached him, massaging his neck with one of his hands.   
  
"It's always such a pain doing that head trick, you know."  
  
Kaneki put a perfectly innocent look across his face. "I'm sorry. At least you got to get on national TV because of it."  
  
"Oh, am I famous now?" Uta asked in his usual soft voice.   
  
Kaneki fell silent again and it was Uta who poked at the side of his face to get his attention once more. He looked at the ghoul with both eyes. "I have to wonder though, why did you go so far to spare Matsuri's life?"  
  
"He's the only remaining Washuu. He's bound to know things that even Little Furuta won't know."  
  
"About what?" Uta said, merely playing along.   
  
"The original one eyed king."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hide's fine I just wanted it to end on a dramatic note.


End file.
